SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine, (Reuters) – The United States told Russia to demonstrate in coming days that it was sincere about its promise not to intervene in Ukraine as armed men stormed the regional parliament and hours later others seized the airport in a mainly ethnic Russian region.
Crimea, the only Ukrainian region with an ethnic Russian majority, is the last big bastion of opposition to the new leadership in Kiev since pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovich was ousted at the weekend.
The region also provides a base for the Russian navy’s Black Sea Fleet. Kiev’s new rulers said any movement by Russian forces beyond the base’s territory would be tantamount to aggression.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had assured him by telephone that Moscow would not intervene militarily in its neighbour.
“We believe that everybody now needs to take a step back and avoid any kind of provocations,” Kerry said at a joint news conference with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
“We want to see in the next days ahead that the choices Russia makes conform to this affirmation we received today.”
The United States pledged its support for the new government in a call on Thursday by Vice President Joe Biden to Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk.
Yanukovich, who fled Kiev after scores of demonstrators were killed last week, was expected to hold a news conference in Russia on Friday. He has declared he is still Ukraine’s president, but has lost support even in regions where the ethnic Ukrainian population mainly speaks Russian as he does.
Crimea, which was administered as part of Russia within the Soviet Union until it was transferred to Ukraine in 1954, is a more tendentious question. Separatism there has often flared up at times of tension between Moscow and Kiev.
A group of armed men in military uniforms seized the main regional airport in Simferopol, Crimea, Interfax news agency said early on Friday.
A day before, unidentified gunmen seized the Crimean parliament and raised a Russian flag. The gunmen issued no demands and police hardly seemed to treat the event as a major security incident.
Instead, they casually guarded the building while hundreds of pro-Russian demonstrators assembled, including elderly people who danced cheerfully to recordings of Soviet martial music.
The regional parliament even managed to hold a session inside the building on Thursday despite the siege, where it voted to stage a referendum on “sovereignty” for Crimea.
By the early hours of Friday, police guarding the building would not say what had happened to the gunmen or whether they were even still there. Russia’s flag still flew from its roof and lights were on in the windows of its top floor.
Oleksander Turchinov, Ukraine’s acting president, warned Russia not to move personnel beyond areas permitted by treaty for those using its naval base: “Any military movements, the more so if they are with weapons, beyond the boundaries of this territory will be seen by us as military aggression,” he said.
