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| President Vladimir Putin answers journalists' questions on current situation in Ukraine at the Novo-Ogaryovo presidential residence outside Moscow on Tuesday, March 4, 2014. Putin accused the West of encouraging an "unconstitutional coup" in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that Moscow reserves the right to use all means to protect Russians there. |
MOSCOW (AP)
-- Stepping back from the brink of war, Vladimir Putin talked tough but
cooled tensions in the Ukraine crisis Tuesday, saying Russia has no
intention "to fight the Ukrainian people" but reserves the right to use
force.
As the Russian president held court in
his personal residence, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met with
Kiev's fledgling government and urged Putin to stand down.
"It
is not appropriate to invade a country, and at the end of a barrel of a
gun dictate what you are trying to achieve," Kerry said. "That is not
21st-century, G-8, major nation behavior."
Although
nerves remained on edge in the Crimean Peninsula, with Russian troops
firing warning shots to ward off Ukrainian soldiers, global markets
jumped higher on tentative signals that the Kremlin was not seeking to
escalate the conflict. Kerry brought moral support and a $1 billion aid
package to a Ukraine fighting to fend off bankruptcy.
Lounging
in an arm-chair before Russian tricolor flags, Putin made his first
public comments since the Ukrainian president fled a week and a half
ago. It was a signature Putin performance, filled with earthy language,
macho swagger and sarcastic jibes, accusing the West of promoting an
"unconstitutional coup" in Ukraine. At one point he compared the U.S.
role to an experiment with "lab rats."
But the
overall message appeared to be one of de-escalation. "It seems to me
(Ukraine) is gradually stabilizing," Putin said. "We have no enemies in
Ukraine. Ukraine is a friendly state."
Still,
he tempered those comments by warning that Russia was willing to use
"all means at our disposal" to protect ethnic Russians in the country.
Significantly,
Russia agreed to a NATO request to hold a special meeting to discuss
Ukraine on Wednesday in Brussels, opening up a possible diplomatic
channel in a conflict that still holds monumental hazards and
uncertainties. At the same time, the U.S. and 14 other nations formed a
military observer mission to monitor the tense Crimea region, and the
team was headed there in 24 hours.
While the
threat of military confrontation retreated somewhat, both sides ramped
up economic feuding. Russia hit its nearly broke neighbor with a
termination of discounts on natural gas, while the U.S. announced a $1
billion aid package in energy subsidies to Ukraine.
"We
are going to do our best. We are going to try very hard," Kerry said
upon arriving in Kiev. "We hope Russia will respect the election that
you are going to have."
Kerry also made a pointed distinction between the Ukrainian government and Putin's.
"The
contrast really could not be clearer: determined Ukrainians
demonstrating strength through unity, and the Russian government out of
excuses, hiding its hand behind falsehoods, intimidation and
provocations. In the hearts of Ukrainians and the eyes of the world,
there is nothing strong about what Russia is doing."
The
penalties proposed against Russia, he added, are "not something we are
seeking to do. It is something Russia is pushing us to do."
World
markets, which slumped the previous day, clawed back a large chunk of
their losses on signs that Russia was backpedaling. Gold, the Japanese
yen and U.S. treasuries - all seen as safe havens - returned some of
their gains. Russia's RTS index, which fell 12 percent on Monday, rose
6.2 percent Tuesday. In the U.S., the Dow Jones industrial average
closed up 1.4 percent.
"Confidence in equity
markets has been restored as the standoff between Ukraine and Russia is
no longer on red alert," said David Madden, market analyst at IG.
Russia
took over the strategic Crimean Peninsula on Saturday, placing its
troops around its ferry, military bases and border posts. Two Ukrainian
warships remained anchored in the Crimean port of Sevastopol, blocked
from leaving by Russian ships.
"Those unknown
people without insignia who have seized administrative buildings and
airports ... what we are seeing is a kind of velvet invasion," said
Russian military analyst Alexander Golts.
The
territory's enduring volatility was put in stark relief Tuesday morning:
Russian troops, who had taken control of the Belbek air base, fired
warning shots into the air as some 300 Ukrainian soldiers, who
previously manned the airfield, demanded their jobs back.
As
the Ukrainians marched unarmed toward the base, about a dozen Russian
soldiers told them not to approach, then fired several shots into the
air and said they would shoot the Ukrainians if they continued toward
them.
The Ukrainian troops vowed to hold whatever ground they had left on the Belbek base.
"We are worried, but we will not give up our base," said Capt. Nikolai Syomko, an air force radio electrician holding an AK-47.
Amid
the tensions, the Russian military test-fired a Topol intercontinental
ballistic missile. Fired from a launch
pad in southern Russia, it hit a
designated target on a range leased by Russia from Kazakhstan.
The
new Ukrainian leadership in Kiev, which Putin does not recognize, has
accused Moscow of a military invasion in Crimea, which the Russian
leader denied.
Ukraine's prime minister
expressed hope that a negotiated solution could be found. Arseniy
Yatsenyuk told a news conference that both governments were gradually
beginning to talk again.
"We hope that Russia
will understand its responsibility in destabilizing the security
situation in Europe, that Russia will realize that Ukraine is an
independent state and that Russian troops will leave the territory of
Ukraine," he said.
In his hour-long meeting
with reporters, Putin said Russia had no intention of annexing Crimea,
while insisting its residents have the right to determine the region's
status in a referendum later this month. Tensions "have been settled,"
he declared.
He said massive military
maneuvers Russia has conducted involving 150,000 troops near Ukraine's
border were previously planned and unrelated to the current situation in
Ukraine. Russia announced that Putin had ordered the troops back to
their bases.
Putin hammered away at his
message that the West was to blame for Ukraine's turmoil, saying its
actions were driving Ukraine into anarchy. He warned that any sanctions
the United States and European Union place on Russia will backfire.
American
threats of punitive measures are "failure to enforce its will and its
vision of the right and wrong side of history," Russia's Foreign
Ministry said - a swipe at President Barack Obama's statement a day
earlier that Russia was "on the wrong side of history."
In
Washington, Obama shot back. Moves to punish Putin put the U.S. on "the
side of history that, I think, more and more people around the world
deeply believe in, the principle that a sovereign people, an independent
people, are able to make their own decisions about their own lives."
"And,
you know, Mr. Putin can throw a lot of words out there, but the facts
on the ground indicate that right now he is not abiding by that
principle," Obama said.
The EU was to hold an emergency summit Thursday on whether to impose sanctions.
Moscow
has insisted that the Russian military deployment in Crimea has
remained within the limits set by a bilateral agreement concerning
Russia's Black Sea Fleet military base there. At the United Nations,
Russia's ambassador to the U.N., Vitaly Churkin, said Russia was
entitled to deploy up to 25,000 troops in Crimea under that agreement.
Putin
also asserted that Ukraine's 22,000-strong force in Crimea had
dissolved and its arsenals had fallen under the control of the local
government. He didn't explain if that meant the Ukrainian soldiers had
just left their posts or if they had switched allegiance from Kiev to
the local pro-Russian government.
Putin
accused the West of using fugitive President Viktor Yanukovych's
decision in November to ditch a pact with the EU in favor of closer ties
with Russia to fan the protests that drove him from power and plunged
Ukraine into turmoil.
"I have told them a thousand times `Why are you splitting the country?'" he said.
While
he said he still considers Yanukovych to be Ukraine's legitimate
president, he acknowledged that the fallen leader has no political
future - and said Russia gave him shelter only to save his life.
Ukraine's new government wants to put Yanukovych on trial for the deaths
of over 80 people during protests last month in Kiev.
Putin had withering words for Yanukovych, with whom he has never been close.
Asked if he harbors any sympathy for the fugitive president, Putin replied that he has "quite opposite feelings."
