Pro-Russian Cossacks share a laugh next to a war monument at a gathering of pro-Russian supporters outside the Crimean parliament building in Simferopol, Ukraine on February 28, 2014. Crimea has a majority Russian population and armed, pro-Russian groups have occupied government buildings in Simferopol. According to media reports, Russian soldiers have occupied the airport at nearby Sevastapol while soldiers whose identity could not be initially confirmed have stationed themselves at Simferopol International Airport in moves that are raising tensions between Russia and the new Kiev government. By Sean Gallup/Getty Images.
The Interpreter continues to see Russia’s actions as a prelude to war:
For days we’ve been reporting rumors that the Russian government was expediting passports for ethnic Russians wishing to flee Crimea. There was a draft law debated to this effect in the Russian State Duma. Now, this announcement on the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Facebook page:
Consulate General of the Russian Federation in Simferopol urgently requested to take all necessary steps to start issuing Russian passports to members of the “Berkut” fighting force.
In other words, Russia is now urging the nationalization of Yanukovych’s riot police. Why is this important? Before Russia invaded Georgia in 2008 they issued passports to ethnic Russians.
[In 2008], Moscow was accused of stirring up tensions in the separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and goading Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgia’s pro-western president, into ordering his armed forces to retake control of South Ossetia. Russia responded by sending in troops and warplanes and crushing the Georgian military in the five-day conflict.
Putin will never let go of Crimea, especially the great Russian base of Sebastopol. By comparison South Ossetia was a minor matter.
But Jonathan Marcus doesn’t think comparisons to Georgia are appropriate:
Georgia was a small country that had deeply irritated Moscow and one that could do little to respond against Russia’s overwhelming military might. … Given the size of Ukraine and the divisions within its population, it would simply saddle Russia with involvement in what might rapidly become a bitter civil war. Russian pressure at the moment serves a different goal. Ukraine is heading towards bankruptcy. It needs outside funding. Moscow knows that Western financial institutions must play some kind of role. Its concern is to underline in as clear terms as possible that any future Ukrainian government should tilt as much towards Moscow as it does to the EU. Russia’s bottom line is that Kiev should resist any temptation to draw towards Nato.
Actually, I agree. Putin doesn't want to invade Ukraine right now. He wants to start a Ukrainian civil war. And THEN invade.
Say everything goes as best as it possibly could for Russia: Crimea secedes, Ukraine goes along with it without a fight, and Crimea eventually joins Russia. Russia gets some nice new beaches, but do they really want a Ukraine as a neighbor which now (a) regards Russia as the biggest external threat it has, and (b) has just lost lots of Russian-speaking voters? Wouldn’t that seem to guarantee a hostile Ukraine for years and years to come? And would another region of Russia with a potentially restive ethnic minority, [the Turkey-backed Crimean Tatars,] be worth that price?
Leon Mangasarian adds that a full military conflict remains unlikely:
[Eastern European analyst Anna Maria] Dyner said economic concerns are an even bigger reason discouraging Russia from overt intervention in Ukraine. The Kremlin doesn’t have “a huge amount of money to spend on such a big operation,” she said. More fundamentally, she added, Russia’s slowing economy is a factor.
“Ukraine is an important gas transit country to Europe and a conflict would probably damage pipelines, further harming ties with the West,” Dyner said. “This would damage the Russian economy, which is the last thing Putin wants right now, just as they’re thinking about reforms amid weak growth.”
But Luke Harding believes that “Moscow’s military moves so far resemble a classically executed coup” in Crimea:
[S]eize control of strategic infrastructure, seal the borders between Crimea and the rest of Ukraine, invoke the need to protect the peninsula’s ethnic Russian majority. The Kremlin’s favourite news website, Lifenews.ru, was on hand to record the historic moment. Its journalists were allowed to video Russian forces patrolling ostentatiously outside Simferopol airport. …
From Putin’s perspective, a coup would be payback for what he regards as the western-backed takeover of Kiev by opposition forces – or fascists, as the Kremlin media calls them. The Kremlin argument runs something like this: if armed gangs can seize power in the Ukrainian capital, storming government buildings, why can’t pro-Russian forces do the same thing in Crimea?
Meanwhile, Josh Rogin reports that the troops in Crimea may not be official Russian forces, but rather soldiers working for the equivalent of Russia’s Blackwater, probably under the direction of Russia’s military:
[Analyst Dimitri] Simes cautioned that information about the fast moving events in Crimea is hard to verify, but the message coming out of Moscow is that these security contractors were deployed by the Russian military for two purposes; first of all they want to secure the airport to ensure that thousands of pro-western protesters don’t descend into Crimea to push back against the Crimean population’s effort to establish a new government and seek some autonomy from the new government in Kiev, which most Crimeans see as illegitimate.
Second, the forces could be paving the way for Yanukovich to travel to Crimea, where he will maintain that he is still the president of all Ukraine. In fact, Yanukovich was involved in the decision to deploy the security contractors to the airport, he said. …
[T]he private security forces provide a loophole for Vladimir Putin; he can claim there is no Russian “military” intervention while using Russian-controlled forces to exert influence inside Ukraine. The plan would be to give the new Crimean government a space to hold a referendum and then elections, thereby establishing a province with some autonomy from Kiev.
Keating doesn’t think anybody would be able to stop Russia from having its way with Crimea:
The fragile new Ukrainian government, which has other problems, not the least of which is keeping other parts of the country from splitting off, doesn’t really seem like it’s in a position to retake Crimea by force, risking a full armed intervention by the Black Sea Fleet. These moves likely violate the 1994 agreement between the U.S. and Russia under which Moscow agreed to respect Ukraine’s sovereignty within its current borders in return for Kiev giving up its Soviet-era nuclear weapons. Beyond verbal warnings, the United States certainly seems extremely unlikely to intervene.
He nonetheless warns against assuming this would a big win for Putin:
[G]aining de facto control over yet another dysfunctional pseudostate, essentially ensuring long-term tension with Kiev in the process, certainly doesn’t seem as good an outcome as what Russia thought it was getting a month ago: a government of the whole of Ukraine tied economically and politically to Russia rather than Europe. This isn’t really a great outcome for anyone.
Unidentified armed men have seized two airports in Crimea overnight, causing Ukraine’s new interior minister to talk of “a military invasion and occupation” by Russia. … They wore military fatigues with no insignia and refused to talk, though one told news agencies they were part of a self-defence unit who wanted to ensure that no “fascists” arrived in the region from Kiev.
At Sevastopol airport, a military airport that handles few commercial flights, a man who said he was a captain in the tactical aviation brigade but declined to give his name, told the Guardian there were about 300 people of unknown identity inside the airport. “We don’t consider it any invasion of our territory,” he said without elaborating. He said the men looked like military, were wearing two different types of uniform and were armed with sniper rifles and AK-47s. “We don’t know who they are, nor where they’ve come from.”
The interim Ukrainian president has dismissed the head of the armed forces, while Russia’s parliament “began considering a law that would allow Moscow to add new territories to Russia in a simplified manner”. There was also this incident at the Russian border:
At least 20 men wearing the uniform of Russia’s Black Sea fleet and carrying automatic rifles surrounded a Ukrainian border guard post on Friday, in a tense standoff near the port city of Sevastopol in Ukraine’s Crimea region. A Reuters reporter in the Balaklava district saw Ukrainian border police in helmets and riot gear shut inside the border post, with a metal gate pulled shut and metal riot shields placed behind the windows as protection. A servicemen who identified himself as an officer of the Black Sea Fleet told Reuters: “We are here … so as not to have a repeat of the Maidan.”
Paul Sonne reports that “Crimean special forces and local militiamen with Kalashnikovs and masks have hoisted Russian flags and set up checkpoints on the only two highways that connect the Black Sea peninsula to mainland Ukraine”:
In Chongar, the checkpoint on the highway that connects Crimea to Ukraine’s largely Russian-speaking east, Russian flags flapped in the wind Friday as about a dozen armed Crimea-based riot police, known as berkut, checked cars and trucks. An encampment of roughly 30 mostly Cossack volunteer militiamen set up tents beside the policemen to serve as backup in case pro-Ukrainian forces attempt to enter the territory.
In an overview of Crimean history, Adam Taylor warns against assuming the region’s Russian nationalists will be unified:
While the Russian nationalists in Crimea have been given a lot of attention in the past few days, some say they aren’t a coherent force. Ellie Knott, a doctoral candidate at London School of Economics who conducts research in Crimea, has argued convincingly that the Russian nationalist and Crimean separatists are in practice hindered by their own internal divisions, and that many ethnic Russians in Crimea have a more complicated sense of national identity than might first appear. And while Russia has shown itself willing to get involved in the affairs of post-Soviet states, most recently with Georgia over the breakaway state South Ossetia, few are predicting it will openly get involved in a dispute with Ukraine anytime soon.
Calming nerves, Eli Lake reports that so far the US intelligence community doesn’t think Putin will invade:
The assessment is based in part on the fact that not enough medical units have been ordered to accompany the Russian troops to the Ukrainian border to suggest preparation for war, according to one Congressional staffer who has seen intelligence on Russia. This source also said no signal intercepts have detected plans for an invasion. …
Fiona Hill, the director of the Center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution, said she did not expect Russia to launch a land invasion into Ukraine. She did however say that the Russian Navy’s presence in the Black Sea port of Sevastopol in the Crimea would be a potential flash point. “There is one place where they could indeed do something militarily, Crimea,” Hill said. “If there was any kind of threat to the bases, they could mobilize their forces.”
The Guardian is live-blogging. Meanwhile, at a “surreal” press conference held in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, the deposed Ukrainian president spoke defiantly:
[Yanukovych] said Crimea should remain part of Ukraine, and called on Russia to act decisively against the new government in Kiev. “I think Russia should, and is obliged, to act, and knowing the character of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, I am surprised he is so restrained and keeping silent,” Yanukovych said. …
He said he believed there should be no military activity in Crimea, but insisted Russia should not “sit in the corner and not act”. Yanukovych, who had not been seen in public for a week since he fled Kiev, denied that he was on the run and that he had been overthrown, and claimed he had been “cynically tricked” by the international community, who had allowed “fascists” to take over. The ousted president said he would not take part in elections scheduled by Ukraine’s parliament because they were illegitimate and he is still the president.
“History is littered with wars which everyone knew would never happen,” – Enoch Powell.
(Photo: More than a thousand people supporting Russia, stage a demonstration in front of the Parliament of Crimea on February 27, 2014 in Simferopol, Crimea. By Bulent Doruk/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
Armed men just seized government buildings in Simferopol, the capital of Ukraine’s autonomous Crimea region, raising the Russian flag above the parliament building and refusing to allow workers in (NYT):
Police officers sealed off access to the buildings but said that they had no idea who was behind the assault, which sharply escalated tensions in a region that serves as home to Russia’s Black Sea Fleet and also to a number of radical pro-Russia groups that have appealed to Moscow to protect them from the new interim government in Kiev, the Ukrainian capital.
Since revolutionaries took over Ukraine’s capital a week ago, the ethnic Russian majority in the Crimea has largely refused to recognize the new government. In some Crimean cities, citizens have begun forming pro-Russian militias to resist the new authorities. “There’s not a chance in hell we’re going to accept the rule of that fascist scum,” Sergei Bochenko, the commander of a local militia group in the Crimea, told TIME last week in the city of Sevastopol. He said his battalion was armed with assault rifles and had begun training to “defend our land.”
Tatyana Malyarenko and Stefan Wolff take a wider look at Crimean separatism:
Separatist forces have a broad social base in Crimea. Available polling data since 2006 has consistently indicated that more than 50% of residents in the peninsula would support annexation to Russia. These figures suggest a strong pro-Russian sentiment among the region’s ethnic Russians and Russian-speaking Ukrainians, but not one that has so far automatically translated into an active pursuit of separatism.
At the same time, there are also strong anti-separatist forces in Crimea, notably the Crimean Tatars, who make up approximately 12% of the peninsula’s population. One of the Soviet Union’s nationalities that experienced deportation under Stalin, they have gradually returned to the Crimea since the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991. While they have continued to experience ethnic prejudice and discrimination in Ukraine, they are, for obvious historical reasons, fundamentally opposed to Crimea “returning” to Russia.
Russian newspaper RBK reported on Thursday that ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was spotted at a Moscow hotel and is currently staying at a state-run sanatorium nearby. Although, his presence in Russia is still unconfirmed, the paper carried Yanukovych’s plea for protection from the Kremlin. “I have to ask Russia to ensure my personal safety from extremists,” he wrote. Despite fleeing, he still insists that he is still the rightful leader of Ukraine.
Okay, so according to Ria Novosti, more than 150,000 troops are due to take part in the drills, as well as 90 planes and more than 120 helicopters. While we don’t know precisely where the troops will be, Moscow has said the drills would happen in the Western and Central military districts. … [W]hile the Western district does border Ukraine, it also covers a huge amount of other land, too. It is possible that some of the troops in this district may be relatively close to Ukraine: According to the Wall Street Journal, the 20th Army, based about 200 miles from the border, is listed to be involved in ”operational and tactical exercises.” On the other hand, the military district in the South is the only one that borders Crimea, and Russia says it is not the part of the drill at all.
Ed Morrissey fears that Putin is laying the groundwork for intervention:
For the moment, he’s still playing his cards close to the vest; he’s agreed to sit down for IMF discussions on a Ukraine bailout to take the place of the one Putin suspended, for instance. Yanukovich is simply a clown show, though, as his credibility in Ukraine is shot, and Putin knows it. The Crimean peninsula will be the flashpoint for any action, and it’s not long odds on Ukraine losing it, either diplomatically or otherwise.
But Timothy Snyder warns that meddling in Crimea would be dangerous for Russia, setting a “rather troubling precedent” for similar meddling by China in the east.
With Ukrainians having overthrown Putin’s ally, Viktor Yanukovych, Putin has ordered a riposte: Russian army units in western Russia and air forces across the country have been scrambled for an unscheduled “exercise.” At the same time, the pro-Russian population of the Crimea, home to an important Russian naval base, has been talking about secession from the rest of Ukraine–no doubt with the Kremlin’s encouragement.
It is by no means inconceivable that the two events could be linked–that Putin could send his troops into part of eastern and southern Ukraine on the pretext of “protecting” the Russian minority, much as Hitler did with Czechoslovakia.
Ukraine expert Alexander Motyl doubts that Russia will be so reckless:
Will Russia lead a charge to reinstall the ancien régimeor break off bits of Ukraine? The former scenario is almost impossible, as the regime has melted away and there is no one left to reinstall. The latter is theoretically possible—at least in the Crimea—although it would mean that President Putin has lost all his geopolitical marbles.
If Putin does throw all caution to the wind and acts only on irrational impulse, he will only consolidate democratic rule in Ukraine (nothing rallies people around the flag as much as foreign intervention: even Yanukovych’s financial backer, the multibillionaire Rinat Akhmetov, spoke out against partition on February 24th) and provoke Russian democrats and Crimean Tatars to take to the streets (or, possibly, to arms—in which case, you can kiss the peninsula’s vaunted beaches good-bye). Such action would also be warning Belarus and Kazakhstan that they might be next. When the dust settles, democratic Ukraine will still be standing, Putin’s Russia could be destabilized, and his Customs Union and Eurasian Union would essentially be kaput. An intervention or economic embargo would bring Putin’s Russia nothing at best and enormous risks at worst.
