Keeping Up With Crimea: Ukraine Crisis Worsens

A near-nonexistent government in Kiev, an increasingly bellicose Putin, a crumbling G8, and an EU and US with few choices — although some could prove effective in the short term — dominated Sunday’s developments in the Ukraine crisis:

• Russia now controls Crimea: “Tensions continued Russia now controls Crimea: “Tensions continued to mount heading toward the regional capital, Simferopol. Russian military servicemen are also reported to have taken weapons from a radar base and naval training facility in Ukraine’s Crimea region and urged personnel to side with the peninsula’s ‘legitimate’ leaders, according to the Interfax news agency.”
• Russian troops have raided a naval base and stripped it of weapons:”Russian military servicemen have taken weapons from a radar base and naval training facility in Ukraine’s Crimea region and urged personnel to side with the peninsula’s ‘legitimate’ leaders, Interfax news agency said on Sunday. It quoted a Ukrainian Defence Ministry source as saying the Russian servicemen had taken pistols, rifles and ammunition cartridges from the radar post near in the town of Sudak and taken them away by car. Another group of Russian military had also removed weapons from a Ukrainian navy training centre in the port city of Sevastopol, where Russia’s Black Sea Fleet also has a base.”
• John Kerry is headed to Kiev: “Secretary of State John Kerry made plans to visit Kiev on Tuesday in a gesture of support for the new Ukrainian government, a senior American official said. The announcement came just hours after Mr. Kerry warned that Russia risked eviction from the Group of 8 industrialized nations and that assets of Russian businesses could be frozen if the Kremlin did not reverse its military occupation of Crimea in Ukraine. Mr. Kerry’s visit is part of the Obama administration strategy to increase the diplomatic and economic pressure on Russia.”
• Ukraine parliament calls for international monitors and necessary aid: “Ukraine has called for the immediate despatch of an international fact-finding mission to Ukraine and Crimea, as well as assistance in protecting nuclear facilities. It is inviting the OSCE, the EU and others to hold meetings in Ukraine. It is also setting up a parliamentary negotiation group to reach out to Russian MPs.”
• Ukraine calls up military reservists: Ukrainian national security officials announced several other measures on Sunday.

• The armed forces would to be put on “full combat readiness”
• Reserves to be mobilised and trained
• Foreign minister to seek help from US and UK leaders in guaranteeing its security
• Emergency headquarters to be set up
• Security to be boosted at key sites, including nuclear plants
• Airspace to be closed to all non-civilian aircraft
• Ukranian activists light up social networks: “Faced with what they call misleading reports on Russian state television that ethnic-nationalist violence is sweeping Ukraine, Internet-savvy Ukrainian activists drew attention on Sunday to video and images posted online that showed street protests in support of the new government in Kiev, and acts of violence instigated by men waving the Russian flag. Video uploaded to the Euromaidan protest movement’s YouTube channel showed demonstrators in the eastern city of Dnipropetrovsk singing Ukraine’s national anthem on Sunday, one day after the Russian flag was raised there by ethnic Russians. The activists also shared photographs on Twitter of young men volunteering to defend Ukraine against the threatened Russian invasion in the same city, and a rally in support of the interim government in Zaporizhzhya and Odessa, where pro-Russia demonstrators had also gathered the day before.”

By: dave-dr-gonzo

David Hirsch, a.k.a. Dave "Doctor" Gonzo*, is a renegade record producer, video producer, writer, reformed corporate shill, and still-registered lobbyist for non-one-percenter performing artists and musicians. He lives in a heavily fortified compound in one of Manhattan's less trendy neighborhoods.

* Hirsch is the third person to use the pseudonym, a not-so-veiled tribute to journalist and author Hunter S. Thompson, with the permission of his predecessors Gene Gaudette of American Politics Journal (currently webmaster and chief bottlewasher at Liberaland) and Stephen Meese at Smashmouth Politics.