Russia sends thousands of troops to Crimea: Ukraine
Russia sent 30 armoured personnel carriers and 6,000 additional troops into Crimea.
SIMFEROPOL (AFP) - Ukraine accused Russia on Saturday of sending thousands of extra troops into Crimea as the Kremlin vowed to help restore calm on the flashpoint peninsula and Washington warned of "costs" to Moscow should it use force.
Defence Minister Igor Tenyukh told the Ukrainian government s first cabinet session that Russia s armed forces had sent 30 armoured personnel carriers and 6,000 additional troops into Crimea in a bid to help local pro-Kremlin militia gain broader independence from the new pro-EU leaders in Kiev.
Tenyukh accused Russia of starting to send in these reinforcements on Friday "without warning or Ukraine s permission."
The defence chief spoke as dozens of pro-Russian armed men in full combat gear patrolled outside the seat of power in Crimea s capital Simferopol. Similar gunmen had seized the city s parliament and government buildings on Thursday and taken control of its airport and a nearby military base on Friday.
Ukraine s border guard service also reported that about 300 armed men dressed in "full battle fatigues" were trying to seize its main headquarters in the Crimean port city of Sevastopol under orders from Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu.
The rugged peninsula jutting into the Black Sea -- host to a Kremlin fleet and with an ethnic Russian majority -- has now been effectively cut off from the mainland.
The international airport in Simferopol has not functioned since late Friday and militia armed with Kalashnikovs have established a checkpoint at the head of Crimea s main highway.
The volatile region has been thrust to the fore of a Cold War-style confrontation between the West and Russia over Ukraine -- a faceoff that has also exposed the ancient cultural rifts between the pro-European west and the Russian-speaking south and east of this country of 46 million.
Nowhere has that divide been more apparent than in Crimea -- an autonomous region of nearly two million people that has housed Kremlin navies for nearly 250 years and which a Soviet leader gifted to Ukraine when it was still a part of the USSR in 1954. The region s lawmakers deposed the Kiev-appointed prime minister on Thursday and called for a regional referendum -- moved forward on Saturday to March 30 -- that would proclaim even greater independence for Crimea.
Crimea s newly-chosen premier Sergiy Aksyonov followed that up on Saturday by calling on Russian President Vladimir Putin to help restore "peace and calm" amid his standoff with Kiev s new Western-backed authorities. He also put all of Crimea s security forces under his control.
Russia s lower house of parliament ratcheted up tensions by asking Putin to "use all available possibilities to protect the population of Crimea."
A source in the Kremlin administration told Moscow s three main news agencies that "Russia will not leave this request (from Aksyonov) without attention."
But Ukraine s interim president Oleksandr Turchynov instructed the government not to recognise Aksyonov s rule in Crimea.
The crisis in Ukraine, the bloodiest since its 1991 independence from the USSR, erupted in November when ousted president Viktor Yanukovych -- who has since fled to Russia -- rejected an historic deal that would have opened Ukraine s door to eventual EU membership in favour of tighter ties with old master Moscow.
The move triggered mass anti-Yanukovych protests and a week of carnage in Kiev claimed nearly 100 lives last week.
Obama to skip Russia summit? -
Western governments have been watching with increasing alarm the threat of escalating violence in the ex-Soviet country.
US President Barack Obama warned Putin in a hastily-arranged White House briefing Friday that "there will be costs for any military intervention in Ukraine."
A senior US official later told AFP that Obama and some European leaders could skip June s G8 summit in Sochi if Moscow s forces became more directly involved in Ukraine.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague said ahead of his arrival in Kiev on Sunday that he had urged a "de-escalation in Crimea and respect for the sovereignty and independence of Ukraine" in a telephone conversation with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
Germany and France also voiced concern about the developments on the Crimean peninsula.
And Sweden s Foreign Minister Carl Bildt tweeted: "Obvious that there is Russian military intervention in Ukraine. Likely immediate aim is to set up puppet pro-Russian semi state in Crimea".
Gazprom warns Ukraine -
Now Kiev s newly installed leaders must grapple with the dual threats of economic collapse and secession by regions that had backed Yanukovych.
AFP reporters said several dozen people were hurt in the eastern city of Kharkiv when a few hundred people broke away from a pro-Russian crowd of 20,0000 and attempted to storm the regional administration centre.
The building had been occupied for more than a week by members of Right Sector -- a Ukranian nationalist movement that played a prominent role in the Kiev protests.
More than 10,000 people carrying Russian flags also protested against Kiev s new rulers in the ousted leader s eastern stronghold of Donetsk.
But the looming threat of a debt default that Kiev leaders warn could come as early as next week looked even more ominous when Russia s state-owned Gazprom -- often accused of being wielded as a weapon by the Kremlin against uncooperative ex-Soviet states -- warned that it may be forced to hike the price it charges Ukraine for natural gas.
"The debt is $1.549 billion, it is huge," Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov told the RIA Novosti news agency.
"Clearly, with this debt Ukraine may not be able to keep its discount (to market price) for the gas."
Ukraine won a one-third discount from Gazprom under a deal signed by Yanukovych with Putin that also saw Russia promise to buy $15 billion in the Kiev government debt.
But Russia has only bought $3.0 billion in Ukrainian obligations and has effectively frozen further deliveries of aid.
Ukraine s new leaders have said that the economically-teetering country needs $35 billion over the coming two years to keep the economy afloat.
