SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine—Amid fears of a Kremlin-backed separatist rebellion here against Ukraine’s fledgling government, armed men in military uniforms took up positions at two Crimean airports as Ukraine’s interior minister warned of “a direct provocation,” but there was no sign of any violence.
In Simferopol, the regional capital of Crimea, a large number of masked armed men were stationed at the international airport Friday morning. They were dressed in camouflage and carrying assault rifles, but their military uniforms bore no insignia. It was not clear who they were and they declined to answer questions.
In Kiev, the speaker of Parliament, Oleksandr V. Turchynov, who is now the acting president of Ukraine, convened a meeting of the National Security and Defense Council to discuss the situation in Crimea.
Announcing the meeting in Parliament, Mr. Turchynov said, “Terrorists with automatic weapons, judged by our special services to be professional soldiers, tried to take control of the airport in Crimea.”
The men took up positions around a central administrative building, but they did not appear to enter the terminals. The airport, by all appearances, was operating normally, with flights arriving and departing roughly on schedule.
One local resident who was at the airport said that he did not know who the men were. “They’re not talking,” he said.
Meanwhile, another confrontation was underway at a second airport, called Belbek, that is used for military and some civilian flights.
In a post on his Facebook page, the interior minister, Arsen Avakov, said that units believed to be affiliated with the Russian military had blocked access to the airport overnight, with some Ukrainian military personnel and border guards inside. Mr. Avakov wrote that the men blocking the airport were also wearing camouflage uniforms with no identifying insignia, but he added, “They do not hide their affiliation.”
Mr. Avakov said that the airport was not functioning but that “There is no armed conflict yet.”
At the international airport, Mr. Avakov said, the Ukrainian authorities confronted the armed men and told them, “You soldiers have no right to be located here.” The uniformed men responded curtly, “We do not have instructions to negotiate with you,” he added.
“Tension is building,” Mr. Avakov wrote on Facebook, adding: “I regard what is happening as an armed invasion and occupation in violation of all international treaties and norms. This is a direct provoking of armed bloodshed on the territory of a sovereign state.”
Igor K. Tresilaty, who identified himself as assistant to the general director at the international airport, said Friday that the soldiers were remaining in common areas outside the airport, in the restaurant and in parking lots.
He added that he did not know who they were and expressed no curiosity about them, saying only that they looked professional.
“They’re walking around, but we, nor the police, can’t have any complaint against them because they’re not violating anything, they’re not touching anyone,” Mr. Tresilaty said.
He said that some of the soldiers had tried to occupy the working areas of the airport overnight but that the authorities there had not allowed it.
When a reporter suggested removing the soldiers, he invited journalists to attempt ejecting them if they felt up to the task. He said the airport was functioning normally, with no delays or cancellations.
The rapid-fire developments came a day after a well-orchestrated power grab by pro-Russian forces played out across Simferopol on Thursday: Armed militants took control of government buildings; crowds filled the streets chanting “Russia, Russia,” and legislators called for a vote to redefine relations with Ukraine. The region is currently autonomous, meaning it has greater local control over its affairs.
Police officers, nominally under the control of the Ministry of Interior in Kiev, made little or no effort to control the crowds and, in some cases, even applauded their pro-Russia zeal. The police stood aside as the armed militants who seized government buildings overnight on Thursday built a barricade outside the regional legislature. The authorities ordered an emergency holiday, leaving streets mostly empty except for the protesters chanting for Russia, and many shops closed.
The rush of events in Crimea, which is home to Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, accelerated the forces tugging at Ukraine since the ouster last weekend of President Viktor F. Yanukovych. The events also deepened a dangerous rift between Ukraine’s new leadership and the Kremlin, which has refused to recognize the new government and now appears to have given shelter to the ousted president and added a new element of uncertainty to Russia’s relations with the West. Mr. Yanukovych, last sighted in Crimea over the weekend, appears to have since been spirited to Moscow via a Russian naval base in Sevastopol, the region’s biggest city, which last Friday forced its Kiev-appointed mayor to resign in favor of a Russian businessman.
Many people in Crimea, even those who denounce the new leadership in Kiev as fascist, scorn the former president as a corrupt coward and say they have little desire to see him return. But the crowd outside Parliament in Simferopol cheered on Thursday as a protester with a bullhorn read out a statement released by Russian news agencies in which Mr. Yanukovych declared himself Ukraine’s only legitimate leader and said that Russian-speaking regions in eastern and southern Ukraine, including Crimea, would “not accept the anarchy and outright lawlessness” that has gripped the country.
“Right, right,” the crowd shouted.
By midafternoon, legislators—at least those who could get through the scrum of pro-Russia protesters outside, past barricades blocking the entrance and past unidentified armed insurgents inside—met to discuss holding a referendum on the future status of the volatile Black Sea peninsula. “Today we made a decision, a historic decision,” said Vladimir Konstantinov, the chairman of the legislature, who explained that a referendum would be held on May 25 to decide whether to “grant the autonomous republic the status of a state.”
But it was unclear what he meant exactly, and some local news reports said that the referendum would ask residents of Crimea only whether they wanted enhanced autonomy, not outright secession.
If a referendum were held, it would almost certainly lead to an overwhelming popular vote in favor of weaker links with Ukraine and even outright secession.
The authorities in Kiev would almost certainly dismiss any referendum as invalid. But a vote on Crimea’s status could be a gift for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, who could then cast criticism of the secessionist cause in Ukraine and abroad as an affront to democracy.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Crimea, a tinderbox of ethnic, political and religious divisions, has had repeated outbursts of pro-Russia fervor that all ultimately fizzled. But the events Thursday, coupled with the fragile state of Ukraine’s new and barely functioning central government, represented a far more serious challenge to the territorial integrity of the country and an already unsettled geopolitical balance between Russia and the West.
Passions for Russia mixed throughout the day with deep nostalgia for the Soviet Union, with protesters singing the Soviet national anthem and military veterans waving the colors of long-disbanded Soviet military units.
Russia controlled Crimea for centuries but lost it to Ukraine in 1954 after what seemed at the time an inconsequential redrawing of internal Soviet boundaries by Nikita S. Khrushchev, the Communist Party leader.
The pace of developments, set largely by well-organized pro-Russia groups that marched through Simferopol in military-style formations, has perhaps outrun even Moscow’s capacity for geopolitical machinations. Having mobilized its air and ground forces around Ukraine on Wednesday for previously unannounced military exercises in Western Russia, Moscow has raised expectations among its most zealous supporters that it will intervene to support their cause.
But any open military intervention would risk plunging Crimea, a vital outpost for the Russian Navy, into bloody chaos and also undermine security inside Russia, particularly in heavily Muslim areas.
Crimea’s Tatars have no record of extremism, but armed intervention by Moscow could strengthen the hand of tiny militant Islamic groups that have long tried, but failed, to rally Tatars for jihad.
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