Biden pledges support for Russia’s neighbours

KYIV — Russian forces seized military installations Wednesday across the disputed Crimean Peninsula. Several hundred masked Russian-speaking troops moved into Ukraine’s naval headquarters in Sevastopol, detaining the head of the country’s navy and seizing the facility. They faced no resistance.

Also Wednesday, Andriy Parubiy, secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council, said the government was making plans to move its outnumbered troops from Crimea back to the mainland and would seek UN support to turn the peninsula into a demilitarized zone.

Parubiy said his country would hold joint military exercises with the countries that signed the 1994 Budapest Memorandum. The document was signed by the U.S., Britain and Russia to guarantee Ukraine’s territorial integrity when it surrendered its share of nuclear arsenals to Russia after the Soviet Union broke up in 1991. Ukraine has accused Russia of breaching the agreement by taking over Crimea.

Parubiy said Ukraine has decided to leave the Moscow-dominated Commonwealth of Independent States.

U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden was in Lithuania, trying to reassure nations along Russia’s borders who were terrified at the sight of an expansion-minded Moscow.

Biden said the U.S. would respond to any aggression against its NATO allies.