KIEV –- Ukraine’s newly appointed prime minister vowed on Saturday to not give up “a centimeter” of land to Moscow, as dueling demonstrations turned violent in Crimea and Russian troops tighten their grip on the peninsula.
Meanwhile, separatists stormed the regional government headquarters in the eastern city of Lugansk, in the latest sign that unrest is spreading.
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"This is our land. Our fathers and grandfathers have spilled their blood for this land,” Arseniy Yatseniuk told thousands of Ukrainians who had gathered at the monument to the nation’s most famous poet Taras Shevchenko on Sunday, commemorating the 200th anniversary of his birth.
“We will not give a centimeter of it. Russia and its president should know that."
Pro-#Russia rally on Lenin Square in #Simferopol, #Crimea - PHOTOS http://t.co/uEnQ6tvHI1 via @KyivPost @sia_vlasova pic.twitter.com/057tT3K5Ds
— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) March 9, 2014
Several thousand Ukrainians recited Shevchenko's poems and laid flowers at the feet of his statue, while blue-and-yellow Ukrainian flags flapped in the breeze and Yatseniuk — alongside acting President Oleksandr Turchynov — delivered messages of unity to the crowd.
"We're one country, one family and we're here together with our poet Taras," Turchynov said.
Also on Sunday, Yatseniuk announced that he would visit Washington this week to discuss the crisis in the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea.
"I am going to the United States to hold top-level meetings on resolving the situation unfolding in our bilateral and multilateral relations," Yatseniuk said during a special government meeting in Kiev, Reuters reported. Yatseniuk did not outline his itinerary.
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Some 800 kilometers south of Kiev, several hundred pro-Russia demonstrators attacked a group of about 200 peaceful demonstrators in Sevastopol who turned out to commemorate the anniversary of Shevchenko’s birth and to oppose the Crimean parliament’s decision this week to join Russia.
The pro-Russia mob used fists and sticks to beat the pro-Ukraine group, chasing at least one man into a patch of shrubs and repeatedly hitting and kicking him, the BBC reported, adding that the group of men also threatened their reporters with violence.
In Simferopol, more than 4,000 supporters of Crimea’s merger with Russia came out to central Lenin Square, where a band played and people sang old Soviet-era war songs, the Associated Press reported.
“Russia! Russia!” the group chanted, according to the news agency. Nearby, about 500 people gathered to oppose a referendum on secession set for March 16.
Russian military forces seized Crimea 10 days ago, shortly after Ukraine’s pro-Russia President Viktor Yanukovych fled his lavish estate and the country in the middle of the night. Yanukovych turned up in the southern Russian city of Rostov-On-Don days later, following more than three months of protests against his choice to spurn a long-anticipated deal with the European Union.
The anti-government protests, known as EuroMaidan, turned violent in December and deadly in January and February as protesters clashed with riot police in central Kiev. In all, as many as 100 people were killed, most at the hands of police snipers between Feb. 18-20.
Since Feb. 28, heavily armed balaclava-clad Russian soldiers have besieged Ukrainian military bases in Crimea without spilling any blood, trapping troops inside and issuing to them an ultimatum: surrender and pledge allegiance to the Crimean people, or else face a military storm.
I'm in #Kyiv today, where it's quieter, calmer than Crimea. Maidan still a memorial to fallen #EuroMaidan protesters. pic.twitter.com/Vw6qWEpMOn
— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) March 9, 2014
Ukrainian soldiers in the area have for the most part held their ground, opting not carry firearms so as not to escalate the situation. Their Russian counterparts have kept them from seeing their families and from leaving their bases.
The latest move by Russia to tighten its grip on the peninsula came early Sunday morning, when its troops seized control of a border guard post in western Crimea, trapping 30 soldiers inside.
On Saturday, another group of Russian soldiers rammed a truck through the gates of a missile defense post in Sevastopol, where Russia’s Black Sea Fleet and the Ukrainian navy are posted, overtaking it.
Ukraine's border guard service said Russian soldiers had also captured a border guard outpost in nearby Kerch in the east of the peninsula early Saturday. The soldiers forced Ukrainian officers and their families from their barracks, according to Reuters.
The Russian occupation has allowed Crimea’s regional parliament, which Yatseniuk and Turchynov have accused of illegally seizing power, to move ahead with plans to make the peninsula a part of Russia. Lawmakers in the autonomous republic voted overwhelmingly last Thursday for Crimea to join Russia, and scheduled a referendum for citizens to vote on the decision.
The West has called the referendum illegal, and said that it would not recognize its result. Russia’s Parliament has said it would support Crimea’s decision to join the Russian Federation. Secretary of State John Kerry on Saturday reportedly told his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov that steps by Moscow to annex Crimea would “close any available space for diplomacy.”
Only 3,000 pro-#Russia demonstrators hold rally in #Donetsk on March 8 - PHOTOS http://t.co/kxkAAVmC3H @KyivPost pic.twitter.com/lvyYykGX5c
— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) March 9, 2014
Operating alongside the Russian troops: several hundred pro-Russia militiamen and Kuban Cossacks, who have become increasingly aggressive towards Ukrainian troops, demonstrators and journalists.
Several Cossacks were captured this week on CCTV camera videos, beating a television journalist in the Crimean capital Simferopol and stealing his equipment. Several others attacked journalists early Saturday at the missile defense base in Sevastopol.
Also on Saturday, a group of Cossacks fired warning shots in the air at a checkpoint to stop military observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) from entering Crimea. Meanwhile, the Kremlin threatened to suspend its participation in nuclear arms monitoring deals.
Members of the OSCE have now tried and failed to enter the peninsula on three separate occasions.
As tensions escalated in Crimea, the unrest and separatist movement seems to have spilled over into Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine, where large pro-Russia protests have been held in the cities of Donetsk, Kharkiv and Lugansk.
In the latest protest in Lugansk on Sunday, several pro-Russia demonstrators stormed and overtook the regional government building. They raised a Russian flag atop it.
Disturbing CCTV footage shows militia, Russian Cossacks attacking journalists, holding gun @ one's head in Simferopol http://t.co/eEwG7Yu2yh
— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) March 8, 2014
Former world boxing champion turned politician Vitali Klitshko was in Donetsk at the time, in a bid to calm both the pro- and anti-Russia crowds. He appealed to the countries that guaranteed Ukraine's integrity under the 1994 Budapest Memorandum to start negotiations to end the Russian occupation.
"This is an aggression against our country," he said. "We expect in the next couple of days a meeting under the Budapest agreement. Crimea is part of Ukraine and everything that happens in Crimea is happening in Ukraine.”
"The independence of Ukraine has been guaranteed by Russia, the U.S and Britain. Those guarantees said we would live in safety. Those countries must prevent the violence,” he added.
Amid the growing tensions, Ukraine mobilized its troops and ordered training exercises at bases around the country. But there are no plans to send its armed forces to Crimea, Acting Defense Minister Ihor Tenyukh said on Sunday, according to the Interfax news agency.
Videos released online appear to show troops from western Ukraine leaving their bases in armored vehicles. But Tenyukh said the only troop movements would be from base to base for training exercises. "No movements, no departures for Crimea by the armed forces are foreseen," he said. "They are doing their routine work."
Christopher J. Miller is an editor at English-language newspaper the Kyiv Post in Ukraine.