US eyes Russian army as Ukraine radicals warn government

Kiev and western allies have accused Russia of concentrating more military personnel and hardware near Ukraine’s border, amid rising tension between the country’s embattled government and nationalist revolutionary group Right Sector.

Despite assurances by Russia's defence chief that he had no plans to push troops into eastern Ukraine, "they continue to build up their forces, so they need to make sure they stay committed to what minister [Sergei] Shoigu told me," US defence secretary Chuck Hagel said yesterday.

His British counterpart, Philip Hammond, said “other Russian players, including minister Shoigu, may express views but . . . we do not know to what extent all of those people are really inside the inner circle in which President [Vladimir] Putin is planning this exercise.”

Ukrainian officials pointed to new footage posted on the internet that they said showed elite Russian troops, tanks and armoured personnel carriers moving towards the border. Moscow’s forces quickly seized control of Crimea ahead of a referendum on unification with Russia, which led to the Kremlin annexing the Black Sea peninsula.

The US, European Union, Canada and Japan have denounced Mr Putin’s moves as illegal and unacceptable. Monitors from the 57-state Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe are starting work in Ukraine, but Russia has not given them permission to enter Crimea.

Fears for Tatars
In a joint statement to the United Nations human rights council, more than 40 countries urged Moscow to allow observers into the region, and said they were "deeply concerned" by violence against journalists and activists in Crimea and raised fears about its Tatar minority, which strongly opposes Russian rule.

Prominent Right Sector activist Oleksandr Muzychko was buried yesterday, a day after being shot dead by police in western Ukraine. Interior minister Arsen Avakov says he was killed while resisting arrest, but Right Sector says he was murdered, and called for Mr Avakov and ex-defence minister Ihor Tenyukh to be put on trial.

Ukraine hopes to secure at least $15 billion (€10.8 billion) from the International Monetary Fund, and announced the deal would see previously subsidised household gas prices rise by 50 per cent. Unconfirmed reports said a bailout could be unveiled today.