Pro-Russian demonstrators wave Russian flags during a protest in front of a local government building in Simferopol, Crimea, Ukraine, on Feb. 26, 2014.
An armed group occupied the parliament and government buildings in the capital of the Crimea region, replacing the Ukrainian flag with Russia’s tricolor.
The occupiers have yet to make any demands, Lilia Muslimova, a spokeswoman for the head of the Crimean Tatar council, said by phone from Simferopol, the regional capital. While the situation is “crisislike,” the attackers aren’t acting aggressively, Crimean Prime Minister Anatoliy Mogilev said on ATR television today.
Interior Ministry troops and police are on alert and have cordoned off the block around the Crimean parliament building, Ukraine’s acting Interior Minister Arsen Avakov wrote on his Facebook page.
Events in Kiev that led to last week’s ouster of Viktor Yanukovych are rattling parts of Ukraine’s Russian-speaking east and south. Hundreds of pro-Russian protesters faced off yesterday against thousands of Ukrainian Tatars in Simferopol, with fistfights breaking out. Russia’s Black Sea fleet leases its main base from Ukraine in Sevastopol, 80 kilometers (50 miles) from the regional capital.
“Provocateurs are on the march,” Avakov wrote. “It’s time for cool heads, the consolidation of healthy forces and precise actions.”
Talks with the gunmen were scheduled to begin at 9 a.m., Mogilev said.
Barricades stand in front of a local government building with a banner which reeds:... Read More
To contact the reporters on this story: Henry Meyer in Moscow at hmeyer4@bloomberg.net; Jake Rudnitsky in Moscow at jrudnitsky@bloomberg.net
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