COUP IN KYIV?

A febrile pre-war atmosphere gripped Kiev on Sunday as Ukrainians turned out in their tens of thousands to denounce Russia's moves in Crimea and signal a determination to resist any further incursions from their eastern neighbour.

A day after ugly confrontations in Russian-majority cities Kharkiv and Donetsk, inhabitants of the capital said they were ready to respond to calls for mass mobilisation from the new leaders in Kiev.

"We are asking all those who have been called by the defence ministry to show up at the mobilisation stations," Andriy Parubiy, secretary of the Security and Defence Council, said.

And outside the parliament building, there were many prepared to heed his call.

"I'm a lieutenant of reserve," said Andry Cherin, a 29-year-old scientist. "I will go to the recruitment office. I'm against war, but there are no other choice, we need to defend our country. This is our land."

"Russians don't need war," he added. "I think there are only Putin's ambitions."

Liudmyla Naumenko, a 50-year-old philologist, added: "They [the Russians] were calling us their brothers, and now they are going to kill us. I have a 23-year-old son I'm very worried about him. But I spoke to him today and told him that he needs to go and defend the country."

Ukrainians were shocked by Saturday's images from Kharkiv showing Ukrainian nationals being paraded through a crowd of Russians who beat them with sticks and kicked them. There were similar scenes in Donetsk. Donetsk-based oligarch Serhiy Taruta wrote on Saturday: "I call on all who cherish Ukraine and its future, everyone, whose heart is torn by today's news, to consolidate their efforts for preserving of integrity of our state."

Even Rinat Akhmetov, a long-term ally of ousted pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovich, warned of the threat to the territorial integity of Ukraine. "The future of our country has been put under threat. The internal political tension threatens to escalate into a lengthy conflict and destroy the integrity of Ukraine. The use of force and lawless actions from outside are unacceptable. I believe that the crisis must only have a peaceful solution."

Given the mismatch of military forces -– Russia's military manpower outnumbers Ukraine's by 7:1 – Ukrainian leaders are calling not just for mass mobilisation but also for outside help. MP Lesia Orobets said: "We need western support. Any type of support they can provide is welcomed. We are under Russian aggression. Russia declared war."

But with western support an unlikely contingency, many Ukrainians were looking to protect themselves. "I'm 80, but I will take a gun and will be defending my land," Leonid Kravchuk, independent Ukraine's first president, wrote on his blog.

Why now after all this time?

The protests broke out after President Yanukovych's government rejected a far-reaching accord with the European Union in November 2013 in favour of stronger ties with Russia. Thousands of people, outraged that a long-standing aspiration for integration with Europe had been ditched overnight, poured into central Kiev for peaceful protests. They have occupied Independence Square, known as Maidan, ever since.

Several developments - including police attacks on student protesters, severe new anti-protest laws, and the abduction and beating of opposition activists - caused the demonstrations to spread and intensify. For many people, they were less about Europe than about getting rid of a president who they believed was clinging to power and serving the interests of his own close circle and Moscow.
RE

...I think it is to station his troops in Crimea to keep a stronghold on Ukraine so that Ukraine won't join NATO or have close ties.

Hundreds of armed Russian troops surrounded a Ukrainian military base in Crimea on Sunday and a dozen Ukrainian soldiers placed a tank at the base's gate, leaving the two sides in a tense standoff.


The troops pulled up to the Ukrainian military base at Perevalne on the Crimean Peninsula in a convoy that included at least 13 trucks and four armoured vehicles with mounted machine guns.


The trucks carried 30 soldiers each and had Russian license plates.


Colonel Valery Boyko, Deputy Commander of the 36th Coastguard Brigade told reporters at the scene that the Ukrainian forces intended to protect the "military hardware, weaponry and ammunition inside."


Telegraph's Roland Oliphant, who is outside base said: "As far as we understand there is a truce here. The Ukrainian Colonel who is in command of this base told us he has agreed with his Russian counterpart that the Russians will not enter.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian President Vladimir Putin had agreed to continue "bilateral and multilateral talks", which should lead to a "normalisation" of the situation in Ukraine.

Putin told Merkel that the measures Russia had taken in the face of a "pristine threat of ultra-nationalists" in Ukraine were and are "entirely appropriate", it is said by the Kremlin tonight.

One wonders if Obama consulted Merkel, or anyone else, before threatening Putin with throwing Russia out of the G8.......

Obama looks out of touch and pathetically powerless as he reaches for rhetorical taunts.

Meanwhile GOP Senators are saying Obama looks weak because he hasn't thrown Russia out of the G8 already.