COUP IN KYIV?

Russian President Vladimir Putin says there is no need yet to send Russian troops into Ukraine.

But Russia reserves the right to use "all means" to protect its citizens in the east of the country, Mr Putin said.

He denied Russian troops had besieged Ukrainians in Crimea - all troops there were pro-Russian "self-defence" forces.

Mr Putin called the toppling of President Viktor Yanukovych following mass protests an "anti-constitutional coup and armed seizure of power".

Crimea has become the major focus of post-uprising Ukraine, as troops in what appear to be Russian uniforms surround Ukrainian military bases and other installations. Russia is de facto in control of the peninsula.

Tensions were especially high at Belbek airbase near Sevastopol, the port city which is the base of Russia's Black Sea Fleet. Early on Tuesday, pro-Russian forces fired warning shots in the air, and Ukrainian troops later marched away from the base.

Moscow: Russia could reduce to zero its economic dependency on the United States if Washington agreed sanctions against Moscow over Ukraine, a Kremlin aide said on Tuesday, warning that the American financial system faced a "crash" if this happened.

"We would find a way not just to reduce our dependency on the United States to zero but to emerge from those sanctions with great benefits for ourselves," said Kremlin economic aide Sergei Glazyev.

He told the RIA Novosti news agency Russia could stop using dollars for international transactions and create its own payment system using its "wonderful trade and economic relations with our partners in the East and South."

Russian firms and banks would also not return loans from American financial institutions, he said.

"An attempt to announce sanctions would end in a crash for the financial system of the United States, which would cause the end of the domination of the United States in the global financial system," he added.

He said that economic sanctions imposed by the European Union would be a "catastrophe" for Europe, saying that Russia could halt gas supplies "which would be beneficial for the Americans" and give the Russian economy a useful "impulse".

Glazyev has long been seen as among the most hawkish of the advisors to President Vladimir Putin but many observers have seen his hand in the apparent radicalisation of policy on Ukraine since the overthrow of president Viktor Yanukovych.

Economists have long mocked his apocalyptic and confrontational vision of global economics but also expressed concern that he appears to have grown in authority in recent months.

A high ranking Kremlin source told RIA Novosti that Glazyev was speaking in the capacity of an "academic" and his personal opinion did not reflect the official Kremlin policy.

Glazyev described the new Ukrainian authorities as "illegitimate and Russophobic", saying some members of the government were on lists of "terrorist organisations, they are criminals".

"If the authorities remain criminal then I think the people of Ukraine will get rid of them soon," he added.

So why is Merkel so hesitant? For one thing, increased tensions with Moscow could be costly for Germany, which relies on Russia for more than a third of its oil and natural gas. As Germany moves off nuclear power, that reliance may increase. The two countries are also major trading partners.

Beyond the economic facts, it’s worth keeping in mind that the stakes of this stand-off likely seem a lot higher in Germany – as Der Spiegel points out, it’s just a three-hour flights from Frankfurt to Simferopol – than in the United States.

When German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier says that "Europe is, without a doubt, in its most serious crisis since the fall of the Berlin Wall” and that “there's a new, real danger that Europe will split once again," he’s talking about something a bit more salient to Germans with a memory of the 20th century than when U.S. politicians make the case that American interests are at stake in Russia’s near-abroad.

With Putin sounding a bit less bellicose today, or at least less enthusiastic about the idea of expanding military operations into Eastern Ukraine, it could be that the good-cop-bad-cop diplomacy combined with the financial markets is helping to deescalate the crisis.

But even if you think Merkel’s position in this crisis has been hopelessly feckless and naïve, I don’t think the sniping from Washington is really going to do much to convince her to be more resolute.

Ukrainian opposition politician Yulia Tymoshenko has responded to Putin’s statement of willingness to open talks with her in Moscow by calling on Western powers to impose sanctions on Russia, Reuters reports:

“Diplomatic efforts are not enough; I think what must be done is to impose economic sanctions on Russia. Especially if there is a further escalation of violence,” Tymoshenko said in an interview with SkyTG24, according to their Italian translation.

Tymoshenko, twice Ukrainian prime minister, said Russia had violated a 1994 accord guaranteeing Ukraine’s security and called on the United Nations and world leaders to broker talks between Moscow and Kiev.

“I believe that the negotiations cannot be carried out by Ukrainians and Russians, after the military aggression that we have suffered. There can be no direct dialogue at this time.”

What the Russians are doing might be argued to be no different than marching into the Sudetenland to protect ethnic Germans?

A TV presenter working for a Kremlin-funded channel who spoke out against Russia's military invasion in Ukraine live on air has been sent by the broadcaster to Crimea to "better her knowledge" of the situation.


In an off-message tirade, Abby Martin, a Washington-based American news anchor for Russia Today, shocked mostly pro-Russian viewers by announcing she "cannot stress enough" how strongly she felt about presence of its troops in Crimea, saying "Russia was wrong".


The host addressed the camera in unscripted remarks at the end of the station's Breaking the Set segment, saying: "Just because I work here, for RT, doesn't mean I don't have editorial independence and I can't stress enough how strongly I am against any military intervention in sovereign nations' affairs.


"I will not sit here and apologise or defend military aggression," she went on.


The English-language Russia Today is widely perceived as the voice of the Kremlin, with Reporters Without Borders describing it as a "step of the state to control information."

Hitler's reasons were, as he said himself already in 1937, "eine Lösung der deutschen Raumfrage schaffen" (creating a solution for the German territorial issues).

MOSCOW, March 4 (Reuters) - A Russian philosophy professor says he is being forced from his job at a prestigious state university after comparing Moscow's actions in Ukraine with Nazi Germany's annexation of Austria in 1938.

In an opinion article published on the daily Vedomosti's website on Saturday, Andrei Zubov said Russia was on the verge of war and added: "We must not behave the way Germans once behaved, based on the promises of Goebbels and Hitler."

By Tuesday, he told the internet news site slon.ru that he had received an ultimatum from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO): "I was told that I either write my own resignation or wait to be fired."

"I responded that I would not write anything; let them fire me if they want," Zubov was quoted as saying. He said he had been summoned to see a superior on Wednesday and believed it was about the article.

I was taught that protecting ethnic Germans in the Sudetenland was the initial reason for occupying it.

A kind of odd occurrence happened with a Russian Today host, she was fired for saying what Russia did was wrong, but now Russia is saying she is not fired, just sent to Crimea to learn about the situation.