Obama observers
40 gunmen in balaclavas f ire bullets above monitors They then withdraw... so Kremlin can build up forces
THE crisis in Ukraine deepened last night as warning shots were fired at international observers seeking to monitor the rapidly growing Russian military build-up in Crimea.
Forty gunmen in balaclavas and military fatigues aimed warning shots above a car leading a convoy of 57 unarmed civilian and military observers from the Organisation of Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).
At least three shots were fired from automatic weapons and although no one was injured, the incident was seen as a dangerous widening of the conflict.
The observers retreated for the third day in a row, with the Kremlin evidently not prepared to allow them to witness the accumulation of Russian weaponry which some Ukrainians fear could eventually be used in a full-scale invasion.
And in a separate incident, a Ukrainian border patrol plane came under fire while flying near Crimea yesterday. No one was hurt, according to Ukranian officials who reported the incident. They said the Diamond light aircraft, with three crew, was on an observation mission. It was not immediately clear where the gunfire came from.
The OSCE’s failure to gain access is a setback for US President Barack Obama who had seen the organisation as a means of defusing tension in the region.
In Russia, the observers were subjected to a propaganda blitz, with TV bulletins describing them as NATO stooges who had been invited to Ukraine by the new interim government in Kiev, which Moscow does not recognise as legitimate.
In a further dangerous development, Russian troops encroached beyond Crimea, threatening a village in the Kherson region, which borders the Crimean peninsular. A Ukrainian TV station reported that parents in Chonbar had banned their children from going to school because ‘the muzzles of the Russian APCs (armoured personnel carriers) are directed right at the centre of the village’.
Residents raised Ukrainian flags above their homes in protest at the Russian incursion.
The Ukrainian army also claimed that about 200 military vehicles, some with Russian licence plates, had been seen heading into eastern Crimea in one of the biggest troop movements since the crisis began.
One 60-vehicle convoy, which included field kitchens, was followed to a military airfield at Gvardeiskoye, near Simferopol, the Crimean capital, with armed soldiers visible in the back.
The conflict in Ukraine is so far bloodless but there are fears one mistake could tip it into a war on the doorstep of the European Union.
Poland yesterday evacuated its consulate in Sevastopol due to ‘continuing disturbances by Russian forces’.
In Donetsk and Kharkiv protesters gathered in their thousands to demand a Crimean-style referendum on leaving Ukraine. They carried Russian and Soviet flags, chanting: ‘Russia! Referendum! Kharkiv!’ and holding banners reading ‘NATO-No!’
In Moscow, state-run TV reports were engaged in a propaganda blitz over Ukraine. Their bulletins were full of phrases such as ‘Nazi gangs’ and ‘militants’ to describe the pro-Western Kiev authorities and the ‘threat’ they pose to eastern regions.
Last night, Moscow was accused of sending thousands of undercover agents into Ukraine to stir up unrest in regions not yet under Russian control.
Dubbed ‘Putin’s tourists’, they pose as wedding guests or relatives of Ukrainian citizens, but when their luggage is searched at the border, a different and more menacing story emerges.
At one checkpoint in the north-eastern Kharkiv region last week, a group of visitors who claimed they were on their way to a friend’s wedding were
Infiltrators arriving with weapons in their luggage
found to be carrying camouflage uniforms, masks, knives, gas sprays and Russian newspaper reports on the political situation in Ukraine, according to a spokesman for the state border service in Kiev. Before being sent back into Russia, the men admitted they had been hired by a Moscow-based private security agency.
Around 2,000 ‘agents provocateur’ – some carrying arms – have been stopped at the border but it is thought many more might already have infiltrated across the porous 1,500-mile frontier between the two countries.
Border force spokesman Oleksandr Zhdanenko said there were ‘strong suspicions’ the infiltrators’ aim was to deepen the political crisis by encouraging pro-Russian agitation in areas of the country outside Crimea, which is already largely under Moscow’s control.
Meanwhile, Yulia Tymoshenko, Ukraine’s former prime minister, was last night receiving medical treatment at Berlin’s Charite hospital. Doctors said it was too soon to say how long the treatment will take and what lasting damage the 53-year-old might have from three slipped discs she suffered while in prison. Tymoshenko arrived in the German capital Friday night.