Russian troops tighten grip in Crimea on eve of secession vote

BAKHCHISARAI, Ukraine — A day before a controversial referendum calling for Crimea to secede from Ukraine, Russian troops continued to tighten their grip on the strategic region as protests over the legitimacy of the vote continued from Kiev to Moscow to the New York headquarters of the U.N.

Reports also surfaced of more than 100 Russian airborne troops moving into Ukrainian territory just beyond the Crimean peninsula’s border and seizing a natural gas distribution station there.

In Kiev, Ukraine’s interim government, which has declared Sunday’s secession vote illegal, moved to dissolve the Russia-backed Crimean regional parliament. And at the United Nations, Russia vetoed a U.S.-sponsored resolution declaring the referendum illegal. Thirteen Security Council members voted in support of the measure, the only nation besides Russia not supporting it being China, which abstained.

Russia sent troops into Crimea in late February, saying it needed to protect the region’s majority ethnic Russian population after the overthrow in Kiev of President Viktor Yanukovich, a staunch Russian ally.

On Saturday, Russian army armored personnel carriers and numerous troops took new positions in several parts of Simferopol, Crimea’s regional capital, as military convoys carrying heavy artillery and missile launchers reportedly moved across the peninsula in the direction of mainland Ukraine.

In addition, about 120 Russian troops landed by helicopter in Ukraine’s Kherson region bordering Crimea, Defense Ministry regional spokesman Alexei Mazepa told The Times. “They moved on and captured a natural gas distribution station in the region, which is key in supplying Crimea with natural gas,” Mazepa said in a telephone interview.

“Whatever decisions the Ukraine government is taking now about Crimea, the fact remains that we all but lost it already as the Russian military is calling the shots there now, and there is no doubt what will be the outcome of this so-called referendum at gun barrel on Sunday,” said Dmitry Tymchuk, head of Kiev-based Center of Military and Political Research. “But I am afraid Russia may not stop at that and move into the southeast of Ukraine the way things stand now.”

Late last month, heavily armed troops captured government offices in Simferopol, where the regional government quickly ordered a secession referendum and appointed a new government led by a local Russian nationalist whose party had won only 3% of the vote in the last regional parliament elections, held in 2010.

In Moscow, thousands took to the streets Saturday to protest Russia’s moves in Crimea, focusing in particular on President Vladimir Putin. Televised video showed demonstrators carrying a huge poster reading, “Russia and Ukraine without Putin!”

In Kharkiv, the northeastern Ukrainian industrial center, pro-Russia activists clashed with supporters of the interim government in Kiev, resulting in two deaths and several injuries during a shootout, the UNIAN news agency reported.

In the streets of Simferopol, people lined up at ATM machines to withdraw $50, the maximum currently allowed. Residents were also scooping up sugar, bread, flour and other staples; most stores that don’t sell food were closed Saturday because of a suspension on use of credit cards and money transfers.

“I wonder if the Russian soldiers and these funny guys have in fact found a single fascist they are so energetically protecting us from,” grumbled motorist Alexei Shavrov, a 47-year-old businessman from Bakhchisarai, as he passed through a checkpoint manned by pro-Russia Cossacks and bearded Serbs. “I am dreading this new life in Russia when we will have to re-register all our cars, houses, businesses with Russian corrupt bureaucrats and face attacks by Russian gangsters, as if we didn’t have enough of our own.”

Armed men guarding a checkpoint a few miles outside Simferopol included a motley mixture of self-proclaimed pro-Russia warriors from far-flung areas of the former Soviet empire, who said they were there to take a stand against the forces of Western Europe and the United States.

“We came here at the invitation of our brother Cossacks from the Don [area of southern Russia] to prevent NATO and the United States from pitting two Slavic peoples — Russian and Ukrainian — against each other,” said Milutin Malisic, 40, an elaborately black-bearded native of western Kosovo who argued that Crimea was unquestionably Russian land.

“My home back in Kosovo was burned down by Albanians; then some Albanians seized my land plot and built their own house there,” Malisic recalled bitterly. “I don’t want my Russian brothers to suffer the same fate, and this is why I am here.”

“Our Serbian friends are a great spiritual and moral inspiration to us,” said a Cossack with lieutenant stars on his epaulets who gave his name only as Vladislav, 36. “They give us what we failed to give them in the 1990s when they were mercilessly bombed by NATO. They came here to take their revenge, but Crimea will become Russia tomorrow, and NATO as well as the United States will know better than stick their nose down here.”

sergei.loiko@latimes.com