Russia jangles nerves with complaints of ‘lawlessness’ in Ukraine

KIEV, Ukraine – As Ukrainian officials prepared to campaign in the United States this week for more international support ahead of a Russian-backed referendum on secession in Crimea, Moscow complained Monday of “lawlessness” in eastern Ukraine, raising fear it might widen its military intervention to include that region.

The Kremlin said in a statement that Ukrainian right-wing extremists, taking advantage of the “complete neglect” of the new Western-oriented government in Kiev, were threatening order in eastern Ukraine. In addition, the statement said, Russian citizens trying to cross the border into Ukraine were being turned back by Ukrainian border agents.

The allegations added to the increasingly heated rhetoric flying between Kiev and Moscow, and sparked concern that the Kremlin was setting up a pretext for a new military incursion. President Vladimir Putin has justified aggressive moves by pro-Russian forces in Crimea, in southern Ukraine, on the grounds of needing to protect ethnic Russians on the strategically valuable peninsula, though no independent group has identified any instances of danger or abuse.

In a sign of increasing Western concern, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization said it was sending AWACS surveillance aircraft over Poland and Romania on reconnaissance missions to monitor the situation in Ukraine. The NATO planes will be dispatched from air bases in Germany and Britain, a spokesman said on customary condition of anonymity.

Crimea’s Russian-backed assembly has scheduled a referendum for Sunday on splitting off from Ukraine and joining Russia. Western nations, including the U.S., have denounced the move as illegal.

Hoping to rally more diplomatic support, acting Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk is due to meet President Obama at the White House on Wednesday for talks on the situation and on how to shore up his country’s flailing economy. The Ukrainian government is perilously close to bankruptcy and needs financial aid to keep paying its bills.

Yatsenyuk is also planning to address the United Nations Security Council on Thursday. He told reporters in Kiev that there was still space for a diplomatic solution to the crisis in Crimea but accused Moscow of spurning peaceful political negotiations.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry had postponed a planned trip to Moscow on Monday, according to a statement on the Foreign Ministry’s website.

Lavrov said an American proposal for resolving the Crimean crisis “doesn’t suit us very much because everything in it was formulated as if there were a conflict between Russia and Ukraine.” Putin denies having sent in troops to take over the Crimean peninsula, saying that local pro-Russian forces have seized control of state and military installations on their own initiative, even though the armed men wear Russian military uniforms, use Russian military vehicles and have, on occasion, openly acknowledged being Russian soldiers.

Pro-Russian forces have repeatedly refused international observers entry into Crimea to examine the situation.

Geoffrey R. Pyatt, the American ambassador to Ukraine, reiterated the Obama administration’s call for high-level direct talks between Kiev and Moscow. Pyatt said the U.S., which has slapped limited sanctions on Russia, would not recognize any outcome of Sunday’s referendum in Crimea.

“Crimea is and should remain a part of Ukraine,” said Pyatt. “Discussion over.”

He added, however, that Ukrainian officials had recently indicated a willingness to consider greater autonomy for Crimea, where a majority of residents are ethnic Russians or Russian speakers and where a semiautonomous parliament has been established. Crimea was part of Russia for most of the last two centuries, but was transferred to Ukraine by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in 1954, when both Russia and Ukraine were parts of the Soviet Union.

Pyatt said a negotiated settlement should take account of Moscow’s “legitimate interests in Crimea” while respecting international law and Ukraine’s present borders. More self-rule for the region could be possible, but “it can’t happen at the barrel of a gun,” he said.

Russian forces have taken over many of Ukraine’s government and military facilities in Crimea, and there were reports that Ukrainian-language television broadcasts were being shut off in cities such as Sevastopol and the regional capital, Simferopol. Kiev says thousands of Russian troops have fanned out across the peninsula.

“We have already stopped following Russian military convoys on Crimean roads as they are everywhere now,” Alexei Mazepa, a regional spokesman for the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, said in a telephone interview. “This morning they captured our navy ammunition depot in the town of Chernomorsk, seizing thousands of rockets and artillery rounds.”

Local news reports say that a few Ukrainian journalists and activists have been kidnapped in Crimea.

Potentially escalating the war of words, ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich, who fled to Russia after pro-European demonstrators in Kiev toppled his government, will make a statement Tuesday, the Interfax news agency said. Yanukovich’s fall from power and the installation of a new government seeking closer ties to the European Union rather than Russia helped precipitate the current crisis in Crimea.

The Ukrainian news service UNIAN also reported that police had arrested Mykhailo Dobkin, the pro-Kremlin former governor of the eastern region of Kharkiv. Dobkin, a Yanukovich ally, had declared himself a presidential candidate in an election to be held in May.

The EU, which has threatened sanctions against Moscow for its incursion into Crimea, announced that it is putting off talks with Russia on a new pipeline that would deliver gas to Europe via the Black Sea and bypassing Ukraine.

Guenther Oettinger, the EU’s commissioner for energy, told a German newspaper that political negotiations over the South Stream pipeline project would be delayed. Spokeswoman Sabine Berger said technical discussions between the two sides would continue.

“We have to see the situation,” Berger said. “We have to take into account the overall relations between the EU and Russia.”

henry.chu@latimes.com

sergei.loiko@latimes.com

Twitter: @HenryHChu

Chu reported from Kiev and Loiko from Moscow.