Crimea Brings forward Referendum on Region's Status to March 30
A referendum to determine whether residents in Ukraine's flashpoint peninsula of Crimea want greater autonomy has been pushed forward to March 30, the spokeswoman of the region's newly-chosen prime minister Sergiy Aksyonov said Saturday.
The vote had originally been planned for May 25, on the same day as presidential elections set by parliament following the ouster of the pro-Moscow President Viktor Yanukovych.
Meanwhile, Russia's lower house of parliament asked President Vladimir Putin to take measures to stabilize the situation in the Ukrainian region of Crimea and use "all possibilities" to protect the local population, its speaker said.
"The Council of the State Duma, in the name of the MPs of the State Duma, has asked the president to take measures to stabilize the situation in Crimea and use all available possibilities to protect the population of Crimea from lawlessness and violence," speaker Sergei Naryshkin said in a statement read on state television.
The Council of the State Duma is made up of the faction chiefs and speaker of the lower house.
Russia could send a "limited contingent" of troops to the Ukrainian region of Crimea to assure the security of Russia's Black Sea Fleet and its citizens, the speaker of the upper house of parliament said Saturday.
"It is possible in this situation... to send a limited contingent of troops to ensure the security of the Black Sea Fleet and Russian citizens," said Federation Council chief Valentina Matviyenko, in theory Russia's number three figure after the president and the prime minister.
"The decision lies with the president of our country, the commander in chief (Putin). But looking at the situation today, such a scenario cannot be excluded. We have to protect people," she said, quoted by Russian news agencies.
Ukraine's border guard service later said on Saturday that about 300 armed men were attempting to seize its main headquarters in the Crimean port city of Sevastopol under orders from Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.
"The head of this group said that there are orders from the Russian defense minister to seize this naval post," Ukraine's border guard service said in a statement, adding that the men wore "full battle fatigues".
Meanwhile, more than 10,000 people carrying Russian flags protested Saturday in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk, Yanukovych's stronghold, an AFP journalist said.
Protesters declared they supported "the aspirations of Crimea to rejoin Russia.”
"Russia! Russia!", they shouted, as demonstrators on the sidelines of the rally distributed leaflets calling on people "not to obey authorities in Kiev."
"We're aghast by what is happening in Kiev. We will not let nationalists enter our city," said Oleksandr, a 40-year-old protester.
This city in eastern Ukraine is a bastion of Kremlin-backed Yanukovych, who was ousted on February 22 following a week of deadly clashes in Kiev, and whose government collapsed entirely, making way for a brand new, pro-West cabinet.
Residents in Ukraine's pro-Russia east and south have looked on the events in the capital with concern. On the Crimea peninsula unidentified armed men have taken over the regional parliament and other government buildings in what Kiev has labeled a Russian "invasion".
Crimea only became part of Ukraine in 1954 when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev transferred jurisdiction from Russia, a move that was a mere formality when both Ukraine and Russia were part of the Soviet Union. The Soviet breakup in 1991 meant Crimea landed in an independent Ukraine.
Source: Agence France Presse
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