Here's a Putin update from our news desk:
Russian President Vladimir Putin, speaking in a pre-recorded documentary about Russia's seizure of Crimea, said former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych's life was in danger as a result of the "revolution" that set out to seize power in Kyiv.
Russian news agencies quoted Putin as saying in the film, "For us it became clear and we received information that there were plans not only for his capture, but -- preferably for those who carried out the coup -- also for his physical elimination."
Putin was quoted as adding, "As one famous historical figure said: no person, no problem."
Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said the Russian leader would watch the documentary, The Way Back Home, when it airs at 10:00 p.m. Moscow time on March 15.
Putin has not been seen in public or on live television since March 5 -- prompting a wave speculation as to his whereabouts, despite official insistence it was business as usual in the Kremlin.
(Reuters, Interfax, Tass)
Just in case you missed it: Igor Sutyagin from the Royal United Services Institute, British defense and security think tank, has published a very detailed paper on the apparent involvement of Russian forces in Ukraine,
Here is an excerpt
Following their increasingly large-scale, direct and conventional involvement in combat against Ukrainian troops in the middle of August 2014,3 Russian troops in Ukraine numbered between 3,500 and 6,000–6,500 by the end of August 2014, according to different sources.4 That number fluctuated, reaching approximately 10,000 at the peak of direct Russian involvement in the middle of December 2014. The Russian Ministry of Defence (MoD) had to involve 117 combat and combat-support units to generate the approximately 42,000 troops rotating in the vicinity of the Russo–Ukrainian border: either stationed there, delivering artillery fire against Ukrainian territory from Russian soil, or directly participating in combat operations on Ukrainian sovereign territory. It is noteworthy that 104 of these 117 units have been involved in combat since autumn 2014 in either one of the two above mentioned forms – 3.5 times more than the number of military units involved in Crimea and in southeastern Ukraine over spring and summer 2014.
The overall figure of Russian troops operating in eastern Ukraine reached approximately 9,000 by the last week of February 2015 and has increased by at least 1,500–2,000 personnel since then.5 Russian troops stationed in Crimea should be also kept in mind – they might conservatively be estimated to number 26,000–28,000 now, including approximately 13,000 of the Russian Black Sea Fleet (other estimates of the overall number of Russian troops in Crimea range between 29,000 and 40,000).
It is also worth noting that all but two of Russia’s ten field armies – the 35th and 5th Red Banner – contributed troops for the summer-autumn phase of the Ukrainian operation (military units from Ussuriysk and Vladivostok came from the Eastern Military District, not from the 5th Red Banner field army; see Figure 1). Military units from as far as Vladivostok and the Kuril Islands have been identified participating in the Ukraine operation. Furthermore, seven out of ten Russian field armies (namely, the 2nd Guards, 6th, 20th, 49th, 41st, 36th and 29th Field Armies) have had or still have all manoeuvre units within their commands mobilised in order to generate sufficient troops for the summer/autumn and winter stages of the Ukraine operation. The 58th Field Army mobilised all but one of its manoeuvre units, which is stationed abroad without direct access to Russian territory (namely, the 102nd Military Base in Armenia; this is marked by a light-blue star in Figure 1). It is illustrative that the 102nd Military Base is the Russian beachhead in Armenia, which has been involved in a conflict with neighbouring Azerbaijan over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh area since late 1989; the conflict has shown signs of heating up in recent months. The other Russian military base without direct access to Russian territory – the 201st in Tajikistan – was reported to be sending troops to the Russo–Ukrainian border in late January 2015.
The Russian MoD kept sending reinforcements to the east of Ukraine even after the ceasefire was signed in Minsk on 13 February. Indeed, two days later detachments of the 2nd Guards were detected in combat near Mariupol, where they arrived as a fresh reserve to replace the 138th Motor-Rifle Brigade, which had suffered serious manpower losses over a three-week period.
Read the entire article here
Click here to see a video and photo gallery of ethnic Czech Ukrainians arriving in Prague airport today after being repatriated due to the deteriorating security situation in Ukraine. They were welcomed by the colorful Czech President Milos Zeman, who even sang them a song on their arrival.
I guess it's a sign of the times, when you have to go to Lviv to see the Donetsk soccer derby:
Here's a long piece from our news desk on Putin's remarks concerning the Crimea annexation in an eagerly anticipated documentary on the subject, which is screening in Russia tonight:
Speaking in a pre-recorded documentary about Moscow's seizure of Crimea, Russian President Vladimir Putin, said former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych's life was in danger as a result of the "revolution" that set out to seize power in Kyiv.
Russian news agencies quoted Putin as saying in the film, "For us it became clear and we received information that there were plans not only for his capture, but preferably for those who carried out the coup, also for his physical elimination." Putin was quoted as adding, "As one famous historical figure said: no person, no problem."
Mass protests over Yanukovych's sudden decision in November 2013 to back away from a key agreement with the European Union in favor of closer ties with Moscow led to his ouster from power in February last year, and he fled to Russia.
The Interfax news agency quoted Putin as saying that that, by saving the life of Yanukovych and his family, Russia did a "good deed."
Putin has not been seen in public or on live television since March 5 -- prompting a wave of often humorous speculation as to his whereabouts, despite official insistence that it was business as usual in the Kremlin.
Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said the Russian leader would watch the documentary, Crimea. Way Back Home, when it airs at 10:00 p.m. Moscow time on March 15.
The documentary marks a year since the widely questioned March 16, 2014, referendum in Crimea that supported its secession from Ukraine.
In the documentary, Putin said that the United States was the "puppeteer" behind the February 2014 Ukrainian coup.
"Formally, the opposition was primarily supported by Europeans, but we knew very well… that the real puppeteers were our American partners and friends. It was they who helped prepare nationalists [and] combat troops," Putin said.
A trailer of the documentary broadcast on March 8 has already prompted Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk to urge the International Tribunal in The Hague to consider the footage as evidence of Russia's premeditated invasion of Crimea.
In the trailer, Putin says he told senior security officials of his decision to take Crimea just hours after Yanukovych abandoned power.
Putin described in the trailer an emergency Kremlin meeting, which he said ended at about 7 a.m. on February 23, 2014.
"As we were parting, I told all my colleagues: We will have to start work to return Crimea to Russia," Putin said.
With reporting by Reuters, AP, Interfax, TASS, and AFP