Jacob Resneck

Special for USA TODAY

About 50-60 armed men raise Russian flag over Crimea parliament building

Yanukovych says he still considers himself to be the legitimate leader

Russia holds military exercises near Ukrainian border

SEVASTOPOL, Ukraine — Armed men kept hold of the Crimea parliament as Russian jets streaked near the border and a newly created Ukraine government formed to try to end a crisis that threatens to split the country following the ouster of its president.

Ousted Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych surfaced Thursday in Russia after having vanished for days following his removal by the Kiev parliament Saturday. He said he was staying in a residence in Russia at the invitation of Moscow and insisted he is still the legitimately elected president of Ukraine, Interfax Ukraine reported.

"Regrettably, what is going on in (parliament) these days is not legitimate," Yanukovych said, according to Russia's RBK news organization.

In Kiev, a parliament that includes members of Yanukovych's party on Thursday chose Arseniy Yatsenyuk as Ukraine's new prime minister. His first move was to form a new government that can qualify for foreign aid from Europe and the United States.

He said Ukraine does not want a fight with Russia but that the country wouldn't accept the secession of the southern Crimea region. Crimea "has been and will be a part of Ukraine," said Yatsenyuk, 39, who served as economy minister and parliamentary speaker before Yanukovych took office in 2010.

The United States has offered $1 billion in loan guarantees to help Ukraine, but some Republicans called the offer "chicken feed" compared to the $15 billion that Russia has offered to get Ukraine to turn away from closer ties with the West.

"The USA should be doing a lot more to support the transition in Ukraine," and send a strong message to Russia to say out of Ukraine's affairs, said U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

Graham said the U.S. military should hold exercises in NATO-member Poland, restart plans to build missile defense in Poland that Obama scrapped, and urge as many countries as possible to quickly recognize the new Ukrainian government.

"I would reestablish ourselves in the region," Graham said. "And I would tell the Russians if they disrupt this effort to get a democratic way forward in Ukraine, that sanctions of any and all kind would be on the table."

Russian intervention would cause "a fundamental change in our relationship," he said. "It would be an unacceptable act… a violation of a country's sovereign right to reorganize itself."

Russian fighter jets were put on combat alert and were patrolling the border as part of exercises ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin, said Russia's Defense Ministry. It didn't specify the areas where patrol missions were being conducted.

The Russian military also announced measures to tighten security at the headquarters of its Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol on the Crimean peninsula. The Russian Foreign Ministry said Thursday that it would "protect the interests" of the Russian-speaking population in Ukraine, according to Russian state-owned ITAR-Tass news agency. The ministry said Russia "will have a firm and uncompromising response to violations of the rights of compatriots by foreign states."

Reports Friday from the Interfax news agency said roughly 50 armed men in Russian-marked military uniforms seized an airport in the Crimean capital early Friday, but a later report datelined Moscow, quoted an airport representative as saying the men apologized and left when they learned no Ukrainian troops had landed.

The unnamed airport official said the airport was operating normally, Interfax said.

Ukrainian Acting President Olexandr Turchinov warned Russian military forces, such as those stationed in Sevastopol, to remain out of the country proper.

"Any movement of military servicemen with weapons outside this territory will be viewed as military aggression," Interfax quoted Turchinov as telling Ukraine's parliament Thursday.

The United States has warned such a move would be a "grave mistake" but did not say what if any repercussions there would be if Russia did so. NATO, the U.S.-European military alliance, said it considered Ukraine's future to be "key to Euro-Atlantic security" and told the new government in Kiev that it would back its "sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity."

"A sovereign, independent and stable Ukraine, firmly committed to democracy and the rule of law, is key to Euro-Atlantic security," it said in a statement.

Crimea's port city of Sevastopol has a majority of ethnic Russians and its history and economy are tied to the Black Sea fleet. On Wednesday, thousands of Russian flag-waving demonstrators cheered and applauded during a pro-Russia rally in which the Russian navy's Black Sea Fleet's choir provided entertainment, singing patriotic Russian songs that evoked the Red Army's triumph over fascism during World War II.

Elena Varinova of Sevastopol could barely contain her anger at what she sees as misinformation being broadcast by western media of events in Ukraine.

"Sevastopol is a city of Russian fame — it will defend itself," Varinova said as she stood beside idling buses that had brought in a fresh wave of Russian flag-toting protesters.

Then Vika Tsiganova, 51, a Russian singer who was popular in Soviet times, took the stage.

"This place is not for fascists," she said to wild applause. "They've tried to be here but it's not their place. Sevastopol is a city of Russian glory for the seamen."

Anger is simmering over a draft law proposed by the interim parliament that would strip the Russian language of its official status.

"We are Russians and we want to express ourselves in Russian," said businessman Mikhail Nichik, 37, who says he hails from a military family with long roots in Sevastopol. "I understand the Ukrainian language in general, but I am not able to express my thoughts clearly and articulate properly in Ukrainian."

There was no word on the identity of the 50 to 60 armed men who took over the parliament building during the night, raising the Russian flag over the building. Crimea has a level of autonomy, hence its own parliament, but is still part of Ukraine and has been since the nation declared independence from the now dissolved Soviet Union in 1991, an event Putin has described as a great tragedy for Russia.

Ukraine activated the country's police forces following the seizure of the regional parliament building in the Crimea.

Amid the protests in Kiev that led to the new government, the Crimea parliament proposed a referendum to determine whether it should secede. Crimea, which has many Russian-speaking citizens, proposed a referendum date of May 25, the same date set for new elections for all of Ukraine's lawmakers and office of president.

As a result of "the unconstitutional seizure of power in Ukraine by radical nationalists supported by armed gangs," Crimea's peace and order is "under threat," Oksana Korniychuk, the press secretary of the head of the parliament, said in a statement Thursday, according to Russia's RT television station.

The armed takeover followed a day of scuffles between rival factions of ethnic Crimean Tatars — many of whom support the interim government — and members of the Russian-speaking population who reject the caretaker government as an illegitimate coup.

Yanukovych said that it would be illegal for any forces to take action domestically against Crimea because it was not ordered by the president himself. He added in the statement that he would fight on until the agreement reached last week that ordered new elections in December — instead of May as parliament approved over the weekend — was fulfilled.

Russia's RBK reported Wednesday evening that Yanukovych was staying at the Barvikha sanatorium in Moscow, which is run by the presidential administration's property department. The spokesman for this department, Viktor Khrekov, said he has no information about this.

Contributing: Oren Dorell in Washington; the Associated Press







