Despite orders to withdraw from the peninsula yesterday, two Ukrainian military bases remained holdouts into the weekend in Crimea, the Belbek Airbase at Sevastopol and the naval base at Novofederovka. It didn’t last.
The Novofederovka naval base was surrendered early Saturday to a group of pro-Russian protesters, and more ships were seized by the Russian military along the coast, effectively ending Ukraine’s naval presence in Crimea. The Zaporizhya, Ukraine’s 45-year-old submarine, was also captured.
Belbek was something of a different case, with its commanders claiming they never got the orders from Ukraine to withdraw, and complaining no one wanted to take the blame. They vowed yesterday to just wait for Russia to take them over so they could leave.
Which happened, albeit in a somewhat more violent clash than one would’ve expected, as Russian troops used concussive grenades during the siege of the facility, which they quickly occupied. No deaths were reported, but several injuries.
Ukraine’s interim government insisted they don’t recognize the takeover of the bases as legitimate, nor the Russian annexation of Crimea in general. In practice, there seems to be nothing they can do about it.
"…nothing they can do about it…"
And I imagine that fact is just eating away at some of the new Ukrainian government. Nothing worse than thinking you've won only to find out the "loser" wasn't a timid mouse, but a big-assed badger with an attitude. And these are the guys who want nukes…what could possibly go wrong there.
So much for the Fort Sumter incident. They must be working overtime at the Pentagon operational planning shop to come up with something new. "Maybe we could run a carrier strike group right up to harbor entrance to Sevastopol and see if they blink!"
So much for the Fort Sumter incident. They must be working overtime at the Pentagon operational planning shop to come up with something new.
"Maybe we could run a carrier strike group right up to the harbor entrance to Sevastopol and see if they blink!"
"No, too risky, and the Turks might sic the Montreux Convention on us. Why don't we consider deploying the 2nd Armored Division to Poland and 'accidentally lose' the training plan, which will be configured to look an awful lot like Napoleon's invasion of Russia. We can even give the 2nd AD the operational call sign 'Grande Armee.' That should have the Russians shaking in their boots. With any luck, they'll do something stupid that we can exploit."
I thought Kiev had a "plan" to evacuate its 20,000 troops from Crimea (no small task when you think about it), but the interim government there has done nothing. What are the Ukrainian soldiers in Crimea supposed to do: take the train with their wives and possessions from Sevastopol back to Kiev? Where will they live, in tents at the Maidan?
Instead, they leave them to their fate in Crimea. Next are the Ukrainian marine base at Feodosia and the army base at Perevalnoya. The Russians won't wait long to disarm them. Kiev can point to the takeovers of these last bases (and any violence that may occur) as further evidence of Russian aggression, but it will all be very humiliating to the average Ukrainian.
To borrow a line from the great Prof Howard Zinn …. how do you evacuate 20,000 troops from Russian territory? In Trucks.
To the headline writer, it ceased to be a "Ukrainian" base the moment the accession treaty between the Crimea and Russia was signed. It would be a better headline to say something like "Russia evicts Ukrainian squatters from Russian airbase"
I suspect the Ukrainian crews were rather happy to let the Russians 'capture' their ships. The Ukrainian Navy was formed by splitting the Soviet Black Sea Fleet. The Ukrainian Navy always had close ties to the Russian Navy. It wouldn't surprise me a bit if they were quite comfortable with rejoining the Russian Navy. Especially if the Ukrainian sailors tend to come from the pro-Russian coastal regions of the Ukraine.