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Crimea and eastern Ukraine's crisis

Ukraine's crisis.

By Paramjeet kaurPublished about a year ago 6 min read
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The airports in Simferopol and Sevastopol were surrounded by groups of armed men whose uniforms lacked any obvious

identifying markings as pro-Russian protesters in Crimea became more assertive.As pro-Russian parliamentarians rejected

the current administration and appointed Sergey Aksyonov, the head of the Russian Unity Party, as prime minister of

Crimea, masked gunmen seized control of the country's parliament building and flew the Russian flag. Voice and internet

connections between Crimea and Ukraine were cut down, and Russian authorities admitted to deploying soldiers there. While

Russian President Vladimir Putin described the move as an effort to safeguard Russian nationals and military assets in

Crimea, Turchynov slammed it as a provocation and a breach of Ukrainian sovereignty.Aksyonov asserted that he was in

charge of the Ukrainian police and military forces in Crimea, not the Kyiv government.

With a public vote on the issue set for March 16, 2014, the Crimean parliament decided to leave Ukraine and join the

Russian Federation on March 6. Both Russia and the West strongly denounced the action. Yatsenyuk, meanwhile, reaffirmed

Kiev's stance that Crimea was an essential component of Ukraine. The outcome of the vote was overwhelmingly in favour of

joining Russia, with observers observing various irregularities in the voting procedure on the referendum day, including

the presence of armed personnel at polling places. A number of Russian officials and members of the Crimean parliament

had their assets frozen and their travel prohibited after the interim government in Kyiv rejected the outcome.On March

18, Putin signed a treaty admitting Crimea into the Russian Federation after meeting with Aksyonov and other regional

representatives. The action was opposed by Western governments. A Ukrainian soldier was slain shortly after the deal was

signed when masked gunmen raided a Ukrainian military base west of Simferopol. As Ukraine started the exodus of about

25,000 military personnel and their families from Crimea, Russian troops moved to occupy bases all over the peninsula,

including the Ukrainian naval headquarters in Sevastopol. Putin signed a law officially integrating Crimea into Russia on

March 21, following the Russian parliament's approval of the annexation treaty.

Yatsenyuk engaged with the IMF to create a bailout plan to deal with Ukraine's $35 billion in unpaid debts while the

world's attention was still on Crimea. Additionally, he met with EU representatives in Brussels. On March 21, Yatsenyuk

signed a section of the association deal that Yanukovych had rejected in November 2013. In the end, the IMF proposed a

loan package worth $18 billion, but it was conditional on Ukraine adopting a number of austerity measures, such as

devaluing the hryvnia and reducing state subsidies that raised the cost of natural gas for consumers.

In order to receive a discount on natural gas in exchange for an extension of its lease on the port of Sevastopol, Russia

violated the 2010 agreement, further solidifying its control over Crimea. In a matter of weeks, the price Russia charged

Ukraine for natural gas surged by over 80%. While openly applying economic pressure to the Kyiv-based interim government,

Russian authorities publicly denied having any further ambitions in Ukraine. However, a NATO press conference in early

April made public the presence of an estimated 40,000 Russian troops stationed near the Ukrainian border and in a

condition of high readiness.Government buildings in the eastern Ukrainian cities of Donetsk, Luhansk, Horlivka, and

Kramatorsk were then stormed by heavily armed pro-Russian rebels. A squad of gunmen who claimed to be from Kharkiv

wrongly took control of an opera theatre, thinking it was the city hall. A number of these takeovers were carried out by

individuals using Russian equipment, wearing uniforms without insignia, and behaving with military precision, much as it

was in Crimea. Gunfight broke out in the Donets Basin city of Slov'yansk as pro-Russian militias took control of

structures and erected roadblocks.

Turchynov gave the people occupying the buildings a deadline, promising them protection from legal action in exchange for

their surrender but threatening military action in the event that they refused. Without incident, the deadline passed,

the invaders solidified their gains, and Turchynov requested that the UN send peacekeeping forces to eastern Ukraine to

bring about order. In the meantime, he gave a strong indication that he agreed with one of the main demands of the pro-

Russian side: a popular vote on the transformation of Ukraine into a federation, which would grant greater regional

autonomy.The Ukrainian military successfully retook the Kramatorsk airfield on April 15, but a larger attempt to regain

authority in Slov'yansk went horribly wrong the following day when Ukrainian troops handed over six armoured personnel

carriers to pro-Russian rebels. In Mariupol, Ukrainian troops thwarted a pro-Russian attack that left seven militiamen

dead as urgent talks between Ukraine, the US, the EU, and Russia began in Geneva.

Despite the fact that all parties at Geneva promised to cooperate to resolve the crisis in eastern Ukraine, Russia

started military exercises on its side of the border, and pro-Russian militants widened their area of control by seizing

more governmental structures and setting up armed checkpoints. Volodymyr Rybak, a councilman for Horlivka and a supporter

of Tymoshenko's Fatherland party, was abducted and murdered by a pro-Russian militia in late April. Following this,

dozens would be kidnapped and held by pro-Russian forces, including eight members of an OSCE monitoring mission, a

sizable number of Ukrainian and foreign journalists, and several Ukrainian police and security personnel.

A gunman gravely wounded Kharkiv mayor Gennady Kernes, a member of Yanukovych's Party of Regions who had switched his

pro-Moscow path and reaffirmed his support for a unified Ukraine, as the U.S. and the EU revealed a new round of

sanctions on Russia. The offensive by the Ukrainian government against the pro-Russian rebels in Slovyansk was resumed on

May 2. Turchynov said that numerous separatists had been killed or detained despite the fact that two helicopters had

been destroyed by hostile fire. In Odessa, which had been relatively unaffected up until that point, violence broke out

on the same day, and dozens of pro-Russian protesters died when the building they were occupying caught fire.

On May 9, Putin visited Crimea and gave a review of Russia's Black Sea Fleet in honour of Victory Day, a festival that

honours the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II. A warning report regarding Crimea was produced by the Council for

Civil Society and Human Rights, a Kremlin advisory body, days prior to Putin's visit. This study directly contradicted

the results of the officially publicised March 16 independence vote. The actual voter participation was believed to be

between 30 and 50 percent, with slightly more than half of those voting in favour of Russia's annexation. Ukrainian

security forces continued to fight for territory with pro-Russian militias as self-declared separatist governments in

Luhansk and Donetsk prepared to hold their own referendums on independence. A particularly bloody clash took place during this time.

Humanity
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About the Creator

Paramjeet kaur

Hey people! I am my own person and I love blogging because I just love to share the small Stories

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