Reveal News

Ukraine’s Ousted Leader Urges Military to Resist New Government

MOSCOW  

As Russia tightened its grip on Crimea, Ukraine’s ousted president appealed on Tuesday to the country’s military units to refuse to follow the orders of the new interim authorities, declaring that he remained commander in chief and would return to the country as soon as conditions permitted.Appearing in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don for the first time since the scale of Russia’s intervention in Crimea became evident, the ousted leader, Viktor F. Yanukovych, denounced the West for rushing to recognize and to provide financial assistance to a government he said was a junta.“You do not have any legal grounds to provide financial assistance to these bandits,” Mr. Yanukovych said, specifically questioning a $1 billion pledge from the United States to Ukraine. He cited an American law prohibiting aid to governments that take power in a coup.Mr. Yanukovych’s claims to political legitimacy at home – though supported by few in Ukraine or even in Russia – did little to suggest that a negotiated political solution to the crisis in Ukraine would be found soon. 
Arseniy P. Yatsenyuk, who was elected interim prime minister of Ukraine after the Parliament stripped Mr. Yanukovych of his powers, is scheduled to meet President Obama in the White House on Wednesday, a hugely symbolic gesture of support that underscores how divisive an issue Ukraine’s fate has become between the United States and Russia.Mr. Yatsenyuk told Parliament on Tuesday that Russia’s leaders had refused to speak to him by telephone for the past five days. “I am ready to talk to the Russians,” he said, according to the Interfax news agency, “but the Russians probably have other problems.”Diplomatic efforts between the countries appear stalled, even as the two sides continued to begin military exercises or maneuvers and to exchange threats of economic and diplomatic retaliation. A spokesman for Russia’s airborne troops announced a new training exercise of 3,500 paratroopers based in Ivanovo, northwest of Moscow, Interfax reported.Mr. Yanukovych has mostly remained in hiding since he fled Ukraine, and his public role in the conflict has been so marginalized that he began his remarks by dismissing rumors of his ill health and even death. “I am alive,” he said, going on to dispute the legality of the actions the Parliament took after a European-brokered agreement on Feb. 21 collapsed. “And I have not been impeached, according to the Ukrainian Constitution.”He appeared in the same conference room at a shopping mall in Rostov where he held a news conference on Feb. 28, the day before President Vladimir V. Putin requested and received authorization from the upper house of the Russian Parliament to use military force in Ukraine.Since then, Russian forces, backing self-defense militias, have effectively seized control of Crimea, whose Parliament has declared its independence from Ukraine and scheduled a referendum on Sunday. Mr. Yanukovych did not explicitly address the referendum, but he blamed the new government – which he denounced repeatedly as a junta, filled with extremists and fascists – for actions that were driving Crimea to secede. He spoke while standing up with four Ukrainian flags behind him, but left without taking questions. He ended by saying that “one day the country will unite.”To the extent he appears to have any influence over the conflict in Ukraine, Mr. Yanukovych’s claims to the presidency appear to serve Russia’s interest by calling into question the events that led to his ouster, eroding support for the new leaders. Mr. Yanukovych said the new elections to be held on May 25 would not be legitimate, as Russia has insisted.Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, said on Monday that Russia was preparing its own proposals for resolving the impasse, but that no officials had outlined them. An editorial in Nezavisimaya Gazeta described a possible compromise: Mr. Putin would agree to recognize the new authorities in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, and drop the insistence on a return to the compromise agreement of Feb. 21, in return for some guarantee that Russia would continue to exert influence on Ukrainian politics.In particular, Russia wants Ukraine to adopt a new constitution and to adopt a federal system that would grant a higher degree of autonomy to regions, allowing pro-Russian regions in the south and east to pursue their own policies. The editorial did not address the question of Crimea’s secession and possible annexation, which lawmakers in Moscow have vowed to support.Dmitri Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, said that such a deal would most likely be acceptable to the Russian authorities, who will be under pressure to recognize the Ukrainian authorities in any case after elections are held.As for the government in Kiev, he said, “A lot will depend on the advice they get from the West, primarily from the United States.” He said that aspects of such a compromise could serve Kiev well, as “a federalized Ukraine could mean keeping Ukraine in one piece,” and as they could benefit from Russian support.“Someone will have to bail them out, they are not in a very strong position,” he said. “They do not control the country politically, they do not control the south and east, and most importantly, they face a huge economic challenge. These people in the government can see themselves out of power very quickly.”Ellen Barry contributed reporting.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/12/world/europe/ukraine.html?_r=0