SEVASTOPOL, Ukraine — The growing sense of alarm over the possibility of military conflict over Crimea deepened sharply Thursday after Moscow announced large-scale military exercises involving crack airborne troops, as well as tank squadrons and artillery regiments, across a broad front near the Russia-Ukraine border.
The snap army manoeuvres were called as Crimeans prepare to vote on Sunday on whether they wish to remain with Ukraine or to secede and become Russian citizens. Ukraine has mobilized its armed forces, but they are badly outnumbered and outgunned by Russian troops based in and near the border area, let alone those that Russia has in reserve further inland.
The mood in Crimea has grown much gloomier and nastier this week as it has in eastern Ukraine, where fresh clashes broke out on Thursday between pro-Russian and pro-Ukrainian activists.
A billboard exhorts the Russian military to stay in Sevastopol. The sign is one of hundreds of pro-Russian signs that have gone up around the port city ahead of Sunday’s referendum on whether Crimea should stay with Ukraine and secede and join Russia. (Matthew Fisher/Postmedia News)
Crimea was effectively cut off from the outside world on Wednesday, except for a single daily rail link from Ukraine that I used to reach here from Kyiv three days ago. While flights and most trains from Ukraine have been cancelled by local authorities, the usual travel connections to Russia remain in place. There are still three daily nonstop flights to Moscow. A ferry service to the Russian mainland has also been allowed to keep operating.
Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, who was been speaking almost daily with President Vladimir Putin, told the Bundestag Thursday that Ukrainians would face “a catastrophe” if Russia continued on its current path. In her most dire comments about the crisis yet, the chancellor further warned that the West would regard Russia’s annexation of Crimea “as a threat” which would fundamentally change the European Union’s relationship with Moscow.
If Moscow annexed Ukraine, this would “cause massive damage to Russia, economically and politically” Merkel said, adding that resolving matters by force was absolutely not acceptable in the 21st century.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel delivers her speech on the Ukrainian crisis at the parliament in Berlin. German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned Moscow on Thursday that if it continues its current course in the Ukraine crisis, Russia risks massive political and economic consequences. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
It was little understood in the West that Crimea was about to become a flashpoint with Russia after the toppling of Ukraine’s pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych in a coup in Kyiv Feb. 22. Even the arrival of troops from the Russian mainland, who were first seen near Sevastopol on Feb. 27, did little to dampen the generally upbeat mood in Kyiv and the West over the installation of a pro-western government.
But tensions in Europe have gone through the roof since a referendum on Crimea was announced last week for March 16.
“Russia does not want war,” Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Vitaly Churkin, told Ukraine’s Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk in New York on Thursday. But Churkin defended the right of Crimeans to vote on secession and said the problem had been created by the West’s support for those who had ousted Yanukovych.
As the war of words has become louder, the atmosphere inside the territory, which is only half the size of Nova Scotia, has become uglier.
While eating in almost deserted cafes and restaurants along the beautiful Black Sea waterfront this week, I have been confronted twice by diners at other tables who were verbally abusive and expressed extreme hostility to the United States and Britain. Other journalists have reported similar or more dramatic run-ins with pro-Russia supporters.
Contributing to the sense of impending doom, there has been a run on the Ukrainian hryvnya at bank ATMs and exchange offices. Groups of men, some of whom were apparently civilians from Russia, have been trying convert their rubles into hryvnya to pay bills, as only Ukrainian money has been accepted in Crimea until now.
People queue at a bank office in Simferopol, three days before a referendum to join Russia. (Dimitar Dilkoffdimitar/AFP/Getty)
There are now more checkpoints on roads leading to Sevastopol and Simferopol. These barricades are manned by hard-looking men wearing a patchwork of para-military uniforms who have been conducting increasingly rigorous vehicle searches. Serbian nationalists have been manning some of the checkpoints to demonstrate their support for “our Russian brothers.”
Swarms of policemen now meet those few trains still allowed in from the Ukrainian mainland, carefully scrutinizing passengers and their luggage.
Men who usually refuse to produce identification have taken it upon themselves to threaten foreign journalists in both Simferopol and Sevastopol. I was denounced as a provocateur and my Russian Crimean driver was denounced as a traitor on Thursday after I took a photograph of a billboard urging Crimeans to vote to secede from Ukraine and join Russia.
Following a script that has not been seen since the Cold War, hundreds of billboards and posters popped up this week around Sevastopol decrying the new Ukrainian government as “fascist” and directly linking it to NATO.
Since Monday, only television stations from Russia or local Russian-language stations have been allowed to broadcast in Crimea. Even Ukrainian pop music stations have been banned.
Crimeans who wish to hear news from Ukrainian sources have to find a fast Internet connection to access the sole Ukrainian channel whose live streaming feed has not yet been blocked. It has also still been possible to see Ukrainian versions of the previous days news through video sharing sites such as YouTube.
The Ukrainian side has introduced similar measures, with cable television companies cutting off Russian news stations.
Given that the Crimea’s ethnic Russian majority overwhelming supports becoming part of the Russian Federation, it is a certainty that Sunday’s ballot will confirm the Crimean parliament’s declaration last Saturday that it intends to separate from Ukraine and become part of the Russian Federation.
