Showing posts with label Crimea. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Crimea. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 23, 2022
Tuesday, March 17, 2015
Russia's Vladimir Putin brandishes the nuclear option
Fresh from low-grade rebel war in Ukraine, Putin bolstering his nuclear arsenal
By Don Murray, CBC News Posted: Mar 17, 2015 5:00 AM ET Last Updated: Mar 17, 2015 5:00 AM ET
A woman pushes a bicycle past a destroyed house in the town of Debaltseve, northeast of Donetsk last week. Residents are hoping UN rations will keep them until gardens are ready. (Reuters)
Putin finally shows up for work 2:51
About The Author
Don Murray
Eye on Europe
A well-travelled former CBC reporter and documentary maker, Don Murray is a freelance writer and translator based in London and Paris.
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To visit Nikishino is to see the effects of almost total war. This could be the road to Berlin in 1945. It is, in fact, the road to Debaltseve, in eastern Ukraine, in 2015.
Debaltseve is a small city and a railway hub, and was the prize in bitter fighting, which ended with Russian-backed separatists seizing it from Ukrainian forces five days after a general ceasefire was supposed to come into effect last month.
Not a house, not a building in Nikishino, a small town of 900, is undamaged. Ninety percent are all but completely destroyed.
To the outsider they look uninhabitable. Yet just days after the February ceasefire, negotiated in Minsk, residents were coming back to camp in the ruins.
When we arrived with a UN aid convoy, there were almost 200 residents waiting. The food, along with the hygiene and shelter kits, would help them make it to spring and warm weather.
Full Ukraine peace deal unlikely
Putin says Russia ready to increase nuclear readiness over Crimea
Then, several said, as if reading lines from the same script, they would plant their vegetable gardens and, with a little help and good weather, they would have enough to eat in the summer and to pickle for the winter.
This was their home, and their parents' and grandparents' home. They had nowhere else to live.
Military spending on the rise
There is a ceasefire in eastern Ukraine, but shells keep falling — we heard them in Donetsk near the airport, and along the battle line and right down to the villages near the sea of Azov and the port city of Mariupol, a prize in the hands of the Ukrainian government and coveted by the Kremlin-backed separatists.
"We never thought we would see fighting again in Europe, right where we live, in our lifetime," said Elena, one of the refugees we came across here. She and her mother had to flee her village in the south, which is still being shelled by the separatist forces and the Ukrainian army.
These people are victims, but most we met saw themselves as victims of the Ukrainian government and its forces, not of the separatists and its Kremlin backers.
Russian President Vladimir Putin resurfaced Monday, after a 10-day absence. In a documentary that aired the previous night he said Russia was ready to put its nuclear arsenal on alert over Crimea last year. (REUTERS)
Yet it is Vladimir Putin's Kremlin — first in Crimea (which the Russian leader now openly acknowledges going after), and now in eastern Ukraine (which he so far refuses to acknowledge) — that has been supporting, indeed has largely directed, the offensives, according to NATO.
The Kremlin has hardly been secretive about its overall strategy. Two years ago it unveiled a new military doctrine of what it called asymmetrical warfare, in effect high-tech guerrilla fighting alongside unrelenting technological and propaganda offensives against smaller, less militarily able neighbours.
That so many in eastern Ukraine see themselves as victims of Kyiv and not of Moscow is testimony to the success of the propaganda offensive.
Along with the doctrine came a vast increase in Russia's military budget.
According to the World Bank, it stood at over four per cent of Russia's gross domestic product in 2014 and was due to climb by almost 25 per cent in 2015.
When it comes to its military, Russia far outspends its European neighbours and now even spends more than the U.S., at least when measured as a percentage of its GDP.
'No more illusions'
Putin has been equally open about his regime's goals.
After annexing Crimea in 2014, he delivered a triumphant speech saying the Kremlin reserved the right to intervene to protect and defend Russians wherever they lived.
Within weeks Russian-speaking separatists in eastern Ukraine had begun a military offensive, setting up Soviet-style local regimes with Soviet names — the Donetsk People's Republic and the Lugansk People's Republic.
In the following months, according to Western intelligence, these rebels were heavily armed by Russia, which has also provided hundreds, if not thousands of troops.
The Putin doctrine simply thumbed its nose at two international agreements, the Helsinki accords of 1974 signed by Russia's predecessor state, the USSR, and the Budapest Memorandum of 1994, signed by Russia.
The first guaranteed the inviolability of all borders in Europe and the second specifically guaranteed Ukraine's borders and independence in return for handing over to Russia 1,900 Soviet-era nuclear weapons on Ukrainian soil.
Thanks in part to these Ukrainian weapons, Russia now has the largest nuclear stockpile in the world, 8,400 warheads to the 7,500 controlled by the U.S.
Crimea's pro-Russian leadership flank youth performers celebrating the first anniversary Monday of Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimean peninsula. At least locally Russia is winning the propaganda war. (Reuters)
And the Kremlin has committed a third of its rapidly-increasing military budget to modernizing that arsenal.
More disturbingly, Putin and others in and near the Kremlin, regularly brandish the nuclear threat.
The most recent example involved Putin himself in a Russian documentary broadcast on state television on Sunday about the annexation of Crimea. He said Russia was ready to put its nuclear forces on alert last year to ensure the Crimea takeover.
"We were ready to do this ... [Crimea] is our historical territory. Russian people live there. They were in danger. We cannot abandon them."
Russian military exercises now regularly include simulated limited nuclear strikes.
And while the official Russian military doctrine published late in 2014 hews to the line that Russia would not use nuclear weapons in a first strike, the unofficial bluster from a Kremlin favourite, Dmitry Kiselyov, appointed by Putin as the head of the government news agency, sounds dangerously different.
''During the era of political romanticism, the Soviet Union pledged never to use nuclear weapons first," Kiselyov said on state television. "But Russia's current military doctrine does not. No more illusions."
'Madman' gamesmanship
Forty-five years ago, then U.S. president Richard Nixon developed what he called the "madman" approach to international diplomacy.
The U.S. was stuck in a losing war in Vietnam and he wanted the Vietnamese to be so unsettled by his rhetoric and behaviour that they would come to believe he might use nuclear weapons to escape defeat.
Putin and his henchmen appear to have revived this approach and are using it with enthusiasm.
What is surprising is how little is said publicly in the West about this tactic.
Compare the relative silence to the table-thumping over Iran's apparent desire for the bomb. And Iran doesn't yet have a nuclear capability, let alone more than 8,000 nuclear weapons.
Is it because of a fear that the Russian bear has become rabid? Or the resigned realization that little can be done about Putin's gamesmanship?
Meanwhile, back in Ukraine, the ride in and out of the separatist enclave takes you past six checkpoints, three on the Ukrainian side of the ceasefire line and three on the separatist side.
And on the line itself — two customs posts, one Ukrainian, one separatist. The Ukrainian government appears to have bowed to the facts on the ground and is already treating the people's republics on the other side as separate territory.
The 'madman' in the Kremlin appears to have taken another trick.
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Monday, March 24, 2014
Ukraine Live: Russia attacks one of Ukraine’s last Crimea ships
by Rohini Chatterji 16 mins ago
#Crimea #G8 #NewsTracker #Ukraine #Vladimir Putin
9.20 pm: Russian forces storm one of Ukraine's last Crimea ships
Russian forces on Monday stormed a Ukrainian navy ship that they had earlier blocked in a lake in western Crimea and which had been one of the last vessels to avoid falling under Kremlin control. An AFP correspondent saw plumes of smoke rise over the Kostyantyn Olshanskiy moments after the Russian forces launched their Donuzlav Lake assault. A Ukrainian defence spokesman said the ship's crew had fired smoke grenades in self-defence. (AFP)
Read more at: http://www.firstpost.com/world/ukraine-live-russia-attacks-one-of-ukraines-last-crimea-ships-1439173.html?utm_source=ref_article
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Ukraine Evacuates Service Members in Crimea
Photo (Courtesy) http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/23/world/europe/ukraine-crisis/
World News
March 24, 2014
Ukraine's interim government has ordered its troops to withdraw from Crimea, after Russian forces took control of three military installations over the past three days.
Ukraine said Monday it is pulling out its troops in response to the annexation of Crimea by Russia. Ukraine's acting president, Oleksandr Turchynov, said the defense ministry has been instructed to redeploy Ukrainian forces from the Black Sea peninsula. He said the move is a response to threats by Russian forces on the lives of Ukrainian service members and their families.
Earlier Monday, Russian forces seized a naval base near the eastern Crimean port of Feodosia, using stun grenades and automatic weapons. Ukraine's defense ministry said two service members were wounded and between 60 and 80 were detained.
Ukraine's new pro-Western government in Kyiv has been criticized for its indecision on Ukrainian troops in Crimea, who have been besieged by Russian forces for weeks.
In The Hague, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was set for another meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, to discuss Ukraine on the sidelines of an international nuclear energy summit.
Russia meanwhile announced it is barring entry to its borders for 13 Canadian lawmakers and officials, in response to Canadian sanctions on Russian officials linked to the annexation of Crimea.
On Saturday, heavily armed Russian troops fired shots and used armored vehicles to smash through the gates of Ukraine's Belbek air base. The Ukrainian forces inside the Crimean base offered no resistance. Russian forces also took control of a Ukrainian naval base at Novofedorovka.
Ukraine has remained highly unstable since November, when then-President Viktor Yanukovych backed off from signing a trade agreement with the European Union in favor of closer ties with Russia. The move led to weeks of anti-government protests in Kyiv that forced Mr. Yanukovych to flee the country last month.
Crimeans voted last week in a highly controversial ballot to secede from Ukraine and join the Russian federation, a move quickly embraced by Russian President Vladimir Putin. The United States and the European Union say the vote is illegal.
In Brussels Sunday, NATO's top commander warned that Russia has deployed a "sizeable" military force on its borders with Ukraine, and says Moscow may be seeking to expand its territorial reach into new areas.
U.S. Air Force General Philip Breedlove said Moscow may be eyeing a small Russian-speaking separatist region on Ukraine's southwestern border known as Transdniester.
Breedlove says the NATO command finds the potential for a Russian move into the Transdniester region, which declared independence from Moldova in the 1990s, "very worrisome."
Moscow insists it is complying with international troop limits near the Ukrainian border. Additionally, Russia's defense chief sought last week to assure U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel that Russian troops massed near Ukraine have no intention of crossing the border.
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Tuesday, March 18, 2014
Back to Scene of The Crimea (Again)
The Yalta Conference, sometimes called the Crimea Conference and codenamed the Argonaut Conference, held February 4–11, 1945, was the World War II meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union, represented by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Premier Joseph Stalin, respectively, for the purpose of discussing Europe's post-war reorganization. The conference convened in the Livadia Palace near Yalta in Crimea.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yalta_Conference
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Soviet_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat_attempt
(Photo: Alexander Zemlianichenko, AP)
Putin rebuffs West, signs treaty to annex CrimeaDoug Stanglin and Kim Hjelmgaard, USA TODAY 11:09 a.m. EDT March 18, 2014To standing ovations and chants of "Russia, Russia," President Vladimir Putin told a joint session of parliament Tuesday that Crimea has "always been an integral part of Russia" then signed treaty paving the way for formal annexation of the Ukrainian Black Sea region. http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/03/18/russia-crimea-annexation/6554563/
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Thursday, March 13, 2014
Wall Street tumbles as Ukraine tensions rise, China slows
By Angela Moon
NEW YORK Thu Mar 13, 2014 4:56pm EDT
Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange March 11, 2014.
Credit: Reuters/Brendan McDermid
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Russia »
(Reuters) - U.S. stocks tumbled on Thursday, with the Dow and the S&P 500 suffering their worst day since early February, on rising concerns over Ukraine and Russia and new signs of a slowdown in China.
Selling accelerated in afternoon trading after Russia launched military exercises near its border with Ukraine, showing no sign of backing down in its plans to annex its neighbor's Crimea region despite a stronger-than-expected push for sanctions from the EU and the United States.
In an unusually robust and emotionally worded speech, German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned of "catastrophe" unless Russia changes course.
The CBOE Volatility index VIX .VIX, Wall Street's so-called fear gauge, jumped more than 12 percent to 16.22. The index usually moves inversely to the S&P 500. A key emerging market exchange-traded fund, iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (EEM.P), fell 1.8 percent to $38.19.
"(Ukraine headlines) are certainly going to be the catalyst but there is more under the surface," said Paul Mendelsohn, chief investment strategist at Windham Financial Services in Charlotte, Vermont.
"There is no military solution to this. All it is, is positioning - and let's be realistic, these Chinese numbers last night were not good."
China's economy slowed markedly in the first two months of the year, as growth in investment, retail sales and factory output all fell to multi-year lows.
The S&P 500 broke below its 10-day and 14-day moving averages, which were acting as short-term technical support levels. It also broke below the 1,850 level.
The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI fell 231.19 points or 1.41 percent, to 16,108.89, the S&P 500 .SPX lost 21.86 points or 1.17 percent, to 1,846.34 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC dropped 62.912 points or 1.46 percent, to 4,260.42.
Economically-sensitive sectors such as industrials .SPLRCI, down 1.5 percent, and technology .SPLRCT, down 1.6 percent, fared the worst. General Electric (GE.N) fell 1.6 percent to $25.34; Apple Inc (AAPL.O) lost 1.1 percent to $530.65.
Earlier, gains were supported by better-than-expected weekly initial jobless claims and retail sales data for February, although the prior month of retail sales was revised lower.
Import prices increased 0.9 percent last month, their biggest rise in a year as petroleum soared, but there was little sign of a broad pick-up in imported inflation.
About 7.5 billion shares traded on U.S. exchanges, according to BATS Global Markets, above the 6.8 billion daily average so far this month.
(Editing by Nick Zieminski)
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Wednesday, March 05, 2014
The 21st Century Détente
(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
Photo (Courtesy) http://www.examiner.com/article/joe-biden-s-forehead-black-lent-ashes-mark-causes-questions-on-ash-wednesday
Pool photo by Alexey Nikolsky
Photo (Courtesy) http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/05/world/europe/putin-flashing-disdain-defends-action-in-crimea.html?_r=0
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By STEVEN LEE MYERS
MARCH 4, 2014
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia spoke about Ukraine at a news conference on Tuesday, at his state residence near Moscow. Credit Alexey Nikolsky/Presidential Press Service, via Reuters
MOSCOW — He sat alone in an armchair, alternately slouching, his legs spread wide in confidence, and squirming uncomfortably. He displayed flashes of sardonic wit, anger and palpable disdain, especially toward the Americans and Europeans but also toward the leaders of a country, Ukraine, he made clear was a political neophyte, unable to govern itself.
He demonstrated his characteristically uncanny grasp of detail in such matters as natural-gas pricing, but contradicted himself at times and wandered off into obscure historical digressions. He made assertions that were clearly exaggerated or, less charitably, clearly not true.
President Vladimir V. Putin, Russia’s paramount leader for more than 14 years, at last broke his studied silence on the political upheaval in Ukraine on Tuesday during a 66-minute news conference that sought to justify Russia’s actions and policies. In the process he offered an unvarnished glimpse into the thinking of the man who, by all accounts, singularly controls those actions.
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Monday, March 03, 2014
Ukraine Mobilizes For War, Calls Up Reserves
Reuters | by Natalia Zinets and Alissa de Carbonnel
Posted: 03/02/2014 5:58 am EST Updated: 03/03/2014 12:59 am EST
By Natalia Zinets and Alissa de Carbonnel
KIEV/BALACLAVA, Ukraine, March 2 (Reuters) - Ukraine mobilised for war on Sunday and Washington threatened to isolate Russia economically after President Vladimir Putin declared he had the right to invade his neighbour in Moscow's biggest confrontation with the West since the Cold War.
"This is not a threat: this is actually the declaration of war to my country," Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk said in English. Yatseniuk heads a pro-Western government that took power in the former Soviet republic when its Moscow-backed president, Viktor Yanukovich, was ousted last week.
Putin secured permission from his parliament on Saturday to use military force to protect Russian citizens in Ukraine and told U.S. President Barack Obama he had the right to defend Russian interests and nationals, spurning Western pleas not to intervene.
Financial markets reacted to the escalating tensions when trading opened in Asia on Monday, with oil and wheat futures jumping and stock indexes falling.
Russian forces have already bloodlessly seized Crimea, an isolated Black Sea peninsula whereMoscow has a naval base.
On Sunday, they surrounded several small Ukrainian military outposts there and demanded the Ukrainian troops disarm. Some refused, leading to standoffs, although no shots were fired.
As Western countries considered how to respond to the crisis, the United States said it was focused on economic, diplomatic and political measures, and made clear it was not seriously considering military action.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will visit Kiev on Tuesday to show "strong support for Ukrainian sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity, and the right of the Ukrainian people to determine their own future, without outside interference or provocation", the State Department said in a statement.
The Group of Seven major industrialized nations, condemning the Russian intrusion into Ukraine, suspended preparations for the G8 summit that includes Russia and had been scheduled to take place in June in Sochi, site of the recent Winter Olympics.
Finance ministers from the G7 said they were ready to offer "strong financial backing" to Ukraine, provided the new government in Kiev agreed to pursue economic reforms sought by the International Monetary Fund.
Analysts said U.S. economic sanctions would likely have little impact on Russia unless they were paired with strong measures by major European nations, which have deeper trade ties with Moscowand are dependent on Russian gas.
But EU officials said the European Union was unlikely to match the United States in threatening sanctions against Russia when its foreign ministers meet to discuss Ukraine on Monday, instead pushing for mediation between Moscow and Kiev.
Wheat futures spiked more than 4 percent on Monday on fears of disruption to shipments from one of the world's key exporting regions. Oil rose as much as 2 percent, while U.S. stocks futures fell 1 percent.
MORE DEMONSTRATIONS IN EASTERN UKRAINE
With Russian forces in control of majority ethnic Russian Crimea, the focus is shifting to eastern swaths of Ukraine, where most ethnic Ukrainians speak Russian as a native language.
Those areas saw more demonstrations on Sunday after violent protests on Saturday, and pro-Moscowactivists hoisted flags for a second day at government buildings and called for Russia to defend them.
Russia has staged war games with 150,000 troops along the land border, but they have so far not crossed. Kiev said Russia had sent hundreds of its citizens across the border to stage the protests.
Ukraine's security council ordered the general staff to immediately put all armed forces on highest alert. But Kiev's small and under-equipped military is seen as no match for Russia's superpower might.
The Defence Ministry was ordered to stage a call-up of reserves, meaning theoretically all men up to 40 in a country with universal male conscription, although Ukraine would struggle to find extra guns or uniforms for many of them.
Kerry condemned Russia for what he called an "incredible act of aggression" and brandished the threat of economic sanctions.
"You just don't, in the 21st century, behave in 19th century fashion by invading another country on a completely trumped-up pretext," Kerry told the CBS programme "Face the Nation".
He said Moscow still had a "right set of choices" to defuse the crisis. Otherwise, G8 countries and other nations were prepared to "to go to the hilt to isolate Russia".
"They are prepared to isolate Russia economically. The rouble is already going down. Russia has major economic challenges," he said. Kerry mentioned visa bans, asset freezes and trade isolation as possible steps.
Obama held calls with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, British Prime Minister David Cameron and Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski. The leaders expressed "grave concern" over Russia's action and stressed that "dialogue between Ukraine and Russia should start immediately, with international facilitation as appropriate", the White House said.
Ukraine's envoy to the United Nations said Kiev would ask for international military support if Russiaexpanded its military action in his country.
At Kiev's Independence Square, where anti-Yanukovich protesters had camped out for months, thousands demonstrated against Russian military action. Speakers delivered rousing orations and placards read: "Putin, hands off Ukraine!"
"If there is a need to protect the nation, we will go and defend the nation," said Oleh, an advertising executive cooking over an open fire at the square where he has been camped for three months. "If Putin wants to take Ukraine for himself, he will fail. We want to live freely and we will live freely."
The new government announced it had fired the head of the navy and launched a treason case against him for surrendering Ukraine's naval headquarters to Russian forces in the Crimean port of Sevastopol, where Moscow has a major naval base.
REACTION FROM THE WEST
Obama spoke to Putin for 90 minutes by telephone on Saturday after the Russian leader declared he had the right to intervene and quickly secured unanimous approval from his parliament.
The Kremlin said Putin told Obama that Russian speakers were under threat from Ukraine's new leaders, who took over after Yanukovich fled huge protests against his repression and rejection of a trade deal with the European Union.
Putin reiterated that stance in a telephone call with Merkel on Sunday, the Kremlin said, adding he and Merkel agreed that Russia and Germany would continue consultations to seek the "normalisation" of the situation.
But in a sign of concern among Russian liberals, members of Putin's own human rights council urged him on Sunday not to invade Ukraine, saying threats faced by Russians there were not severe enough to justify sending in troops.
Ukraine, which says it has no intention of threatening Russian speakers, has appealed for help to NATO, as well as to Britain and the United States as co-signatories with Russia to a 1994 accord guaranteeing Ukraine's security.
After an emergency meeting of NATO ambassadors in Brussels, the alliance called on Russia to bring its forces back to bases and refrain from interfering in Ukraine.
Despite expressing "grave concern", NATO did not agree on any significant measures to apply pressure on Russia, with the West struggling to come up with a forthright response that does not risk pushing the region closer to military conflict.
"We urge both parties to immediately seek a peaceful solution through bilateral dialogue, with international facilitation ... and through the dispatch of international observers under the auspices of the United Nations Security Council or the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe," NATO said in a statement.
So far, the Western response has been largely symbolic. Some countries recalled ambassadors. Britain said its ministers would stay away from the Paralympics, which begin in Sochi on Friday.
"Right now, I think we are focused on political, diplomatic and economic options," a senior U.S. official told reporters.
"Frankly our goal is to uphold the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine, not to have a military escalation," he said.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier urged world leaders on Sunday to work to calm the crisis and defended Russia's membership of the G8, saying it enabled the West to talk directly withMoscow.
RUSSIANS IN CRIMEA
Ukraine's military is ill-matched against its neighbour. Britain's International Institute of Strategic Studies estimates Kiev has fewer than 130,000 troops under arms, with planes barely ready to fly and few spare parts for a single submarine.
Russia, by contrast, has spent billions under Putin to upgrade and modernise the capabilities of forces that were dilapidated after the breakup of the Soviet Union. Moscow's special units are now seen as equal to the best in the world.
In Crimea, Ukraine's tiny contingent made no attempt to oppose the Russians, who bore no insignia on their uniforms but drove vehicles with Russian plates and seized government buildings, airports and other locations in the past three days.
Kiev said its troops were encircled in at least three places and pulled its coast guard vessels out of Crimean ports. Ukraine said its naval fleet's 10 ships were still in Sevastopol and remained loyal to Kiev.
Scores of Russian troops were camped outside a base of Ukrainian troops at Perevalnoye, on a road from Crimea's capital, Simferopol, towards the coast.
A representative of the base commander said troops on both sides had reached agreement so no blood would be shed.
"We are ready to protect the grounds and our military equipment," Valery Boiko told Reuters television. "We hope for a compromise to be reached, a decision, and as the commander has said, there will be no war."
Igor Mamchev, a Ukrainian navy colonel at another small base outside Simferopol, said a truckload of Russian troops had arrived at his checkpoint and told his forces to lay down their arms.
"I replied that, as I am a member of the armed forces of Ukraine, under orders of the Ukrainian navy, there could be no discussion of disarmament. In case of any attempt to enter the military base, we will use all means, up to lethal force," Mamchev told Ukraine's Channel 5 TV.
A unit of Ukrainian marines was also holed up in a base in the Crimean port of Feodosia, where they refused to disarm.
Elsewhere on the occupied peninsula, the Russian troops assumed a lower profile on Sunday after thepro-Moscow Crimean leader said overnight the situation was now "normalised".
Putin's justification citing the need to protect Russian citizens was the same as he used to launch a 2008 invasion of Georgia, where Russian forces seized two breakaway regions.
In Russia, state-controlled media portray Yanukovich's removal as a coup by dangerous extremists funded by the West and there has been little sign of dissent.
(Additional reporting by Peter Graff, Sabina Zawadzki, Pavel Polityuk, Timothy Heritage and Stephen Grey in Kiev, Lina Kushch in Donetsk, Peter Apps and Guy Faulconbridge in London, Will Dunham, Arshad Mohammed and Matt Spetalnick in Washington, Lou Charbonneau at the United Nations, and Justyna Pawlak and Luke Baker in Brussels; Writing by Peter Graff, Paul Taylor, Frances Kerry and Peter Cooney; Editing by Alex Richardson and Paul Tait)
By Natalia Zinets and Alissa de Carbonnel
KIEV/BALACLAVA, Ukraine, March 2 (Reuters) - Ukraine mobilised for war on Sunday and Washington threatened to isolate Russia economically after President Vladimir Putin declared he had the right to invade his neighbour in Moscow's biggest confrontation with the West since the Cold War.
"This is not a threat: this is actually the declaration of war to my country," Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk said in English. Yatseniuk heads a pro-Western government that took power in the former Soviet republic when its Moscow-backed president, Viktor Yanukovich, was ousted last week.
Putin secured permission from his parliament on Saturday to use military force to protect Russian citizens in Ukraine and told U.S. President Barack Obama he had the right to defend Russian interests and nationals, spurning Western pleas not to intervene.
Financial markets reacted to the escalating tensions when trading opened in Asia on Monday, with oil and wheat futures jumping and stock indexes falling.
Russian forces have already bloodlessly seized Crimea, an isolated Black Sea peninsula whereMoscow has a naval base.
On Sunday, they surrounded several small Ukrainian military outposts there and demanded the Ukrainian troops disarm. Some refused, leading to standoffs, although no shots were fired.
As Western countries considered how to respond to the crisis, the United States said it was focused on economic, diplomatic and political measures, and made clear it was not seriously considering military action.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will visit Kiev on Tuesday to show "strong support for Ukrainian sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity, and the right of the Ukrainian people to determine their own future, without outside interference or provocation", the State Department said in a statement.
The Group of Seven major industrialized nations, condemning the Russian intrusion into Ukraine, suspended preparations for the G8 summit that includes Russia and had been scheduled to take place in June in Sochi, site of the recent Winter Olympics.
Finance ministers from the G7 said they were ready to offer "strong financial backing" to Ukraine, provided the new government in Kiev agreed to pursue economic reforms sought by the International Monetary Fund.
Analysts said U.S. economic sanctions would likely have little impact on Russia unless they were paired with strong measures by major European nations, which have deeper trade ties with Moscowand are dependent on Russian gas.
But EU officials said the European Union was unlikely to match the United States in threatening sanctions against Russia when its foreign ministers meet to discuss Ukraine on Monday, instead pushing for mediation between Moscow and Kiev.
Wheat futures spiked more than 4 percent on Monday on fears of disruption to shipments from one of the world's key exporting regions. Oil rose as much as 2 percent, while U.S. stocks futures fell 1 percent.
MORE DEMONSTRATIONS IN EASTERN UKRAINE
With Russian forces in control of majority ethnic Russian Crimea, the focus is shifting to eastern swaths of Ukraine, where most ethnic Ukrainians speak Russian as a native language.
Those areas saw more demonstrations on Sunday after violent protests on Saturday, and pro-Moscowactivists hoisted flags for a second day at government buildings and called for Russia to defend them.
Russia has staged war games with 150,000 troops along the land border, but they have so far not crossed. Kiev said Russia had sent hundreds of its citizens across the border to stage the protests.
Ukraine's security council ordered the general staff to immediately put all armed forces on highest alert. But Kiev's small and under-equipped military is seen as no match for Russia's superpower might.
The Defence Ministry was ordered to stage a call-up of reserves, meaning theoretically all men up to 40 in a country with universal male conscription, although Ukraine would struggle to find extra guns or uniforms for many of them.
Kerry condemned Russia for what he called an "incredible act of aggression" and brandished the threat of economic sanctions.
"You just don't, in the 21st century, behave in 19th century fashion by invading another country on a completely trumped-up pretext," Kerry told the CBS programme "Face the Nation".
He said Moscow still had a "right set of choices" to defuse the crisis. Otherwise, G8 countries and other nations were prepared to "to go to the hilt to isolate Russia".
"They are prepared to isolate Russia economically. The rouble is already going down. Russia has major economic challenges," he said. Kerry mentioned visa bans, asset freezes and trade isolation as possible steps.
Obama held calls with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, British Prime Minister David Cameron and Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski. The leaders expressed "grave concern" over Russia's action and stressed that "dialogue between Ukraine and Russia should start immediately, with international facilitation as appropriate", the White House said.
Ukraine's envoy to the United Nations said Kiev would ask for international military support if Russiaexpanded its military action in his country.
At Kiev's Independence Square, where anti-Yanukovich protesters had camped out for months, thousands demonstrated against Russian military action. Speakers delivered rousing orations and placards read: "Putin, hands off Ukraine!"
"If there is a need to protect the nation, we will go and defend the nation," said Oleh, an advertising executive cooking over an open fire at the square where he has been camped for three months. "If Putin wants to take Ukraine for himself, he will fail. We want to live freely and we will live freely."
The new government announced it had fired the head of the navy and launched a treason case against him for surrendering Ukraine's naval headquarters to Russian forces in the Crimean port of Sevastopol, where Moscow has a major naval base.
REACTION FROM THE WEST
Obama spoke to Putin for 90 minutes by telephone on Saturday after the Russian leader declared he had the right to intervene and quickly secured unanimous approval from his parliament.
The Kremlin said Putin told Obama that Russian speakers were under threat from Ukraine's new leaders, who took over after Yanukovich fled huge protests against his repression and rejection of a trade deal with the European Union.
Putin reiterated that stance in a telephone call with Merkel on Sunday, the Kremlin said, adding he and Merkel agreed that Russia and Germany would continue consultations to seek the "normalisation" of the situation.
But in a sign of concern among Russian liberals, members of Putin's own human rights council urged him on Sunday not to invade Ukraine, saying threats faced by Russians there were not severe enough to justify sending in troops.
Ukraine, which says it has no intention of threatening Russian speakers, has appealed for help to NATO, as well as to Britain and the United States as co-signatories with Russia to a 1994 accord guaranteeing Ukraine's security.
After an emergency meeting of NATO ambassadors in Brussels, the alliance called on Russia to bring its forces back to bases and refrain from interfering in Ukraine.
Despite expressing "grave concern", NATO did not agree on any significant measures to apply pressure on Russia, with the West struggling to come up with a forthright response that does not risk pushing the region closer to military conflict.
"We urge both parties to immediately seek a peaceful solution through bilateral dialogue, with international facilitation ... and through the dispatch of international observers under the auspices of the United Nations Security Council or the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe," NATO said in a statement.
So far, the Western response has been largely symbolic. Some countries recalled ambassadors. Britain said its ministers would stay away from the Paralympics, which begin in Sochi on Friday.
"Right now, I think we are focused on political, diplomatic and economic options," a senior U.S. official told reporters.
"Frankly our goal is to uphold the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine, not to have a military escalation," he said.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier urged world leaders on Sunday to work to calm the crisis and defended Russia's membership of the G8, saying it enabled the West to talk directly withMoscow.
RUSSIANS IN CRIMEA
Ukraine's military is ill-matched against its neighbour. Britain's International Institute of Strategic Studies estimates Kiev has fewer than 130,000 troops under arms, with planes barely ready to fly and few spare parts for a single submarine.
Russia, by contrast, has spent billions under Putin to upgrade and modernise the capabilities of forces that were dilapidated after the breakup of the Soviet Union. Moscow's special units are now seen as equal to the best in the world.
In Crimea, Ukraine's tiny contingent made no attempt to oppose the Russians, who bore no insignia on their uniforms but drove vehicles with Russian plates and seized government buildings, airports and other locations in the past three days.
Kiev said its troops were encircled in at least three places and pulled its coast guard vessels out of Crimean ports. Ukraine said its naval fleet's 10 ships were still in Sevastopol and remained loyal to Kiev.
Scores of Russian troops were camped outside a base of Ukrainian troops at Perevalnoye, on a road from Crimea's capital, Simferopol, towards the coast.
A representative of the base commander said troops on both sides had reached agreement so no blood would be shed.
"We are ready to protect the grounds and our military equipment," Valery Boiko told Reuters television. "We hope for a compromise to be reached, a decision, and as the commander has said, there will be no war."
Igor Mamchev, a Ukrainian navy colonel at another small base outside Simferopol, said a truckload of Russian troops had arrived at his checkpoint and told his forces to lay down their arms.
"I replied that, as I am a member of the armed forces of Ukraine, under orders of the Ukrainian navy, there could be no discussion of disarmament. In case of any attempt to enter the military base, we will use all means, up to lethal force," Mamchev told Ukraine's Channel 5 TV.
A unit of Ukrainian marines was also holed up in a base in the Crimean port of Feodosia, where they refused to disarm.
Elsewhere on the occupied peninsula, the Russian troops assumed a lower profile on Sunday after thepro-Moscow Crimean leader said overnight the situation was now "normalised".
Putin's justification citing the need to protect Russian citizens was the same as he used to launch a 2008 invasion of Georgia, where Russian forces seized two breakaway regions.
In Russia, state-controlled media portray Yanukovich's removal as a coup by dangerous extremists funded by the West and there has been little sign of dissent.
(Additional reporting by Peter Graff, Sabina Zawadzki, Pavel Polityuk, Timothy Heritage and Stephen Grey in Kiev, Lina Kushch in Donetsk, Peter Apps and Guy Faulconbridge in London, Will Dunham, Arshad Mohammed and Matt Spetalnick in Washington, Lou Charbonneau at the United Nations, and Justyna Pawlak and Luke Baker in Brussels; Writing by Peter Graff, Paul Taylor, Frances Kerry and Peter Cooney; Editing by Alex Richardson and Paul Tait)
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