Ukraine mobilizes after Putin's 'declaration of war'

Mohammed Ibrahim Alwakeel > كربلاء ولايتي مات وقتل الالاف العراقيين دفاعا عن بيضه الاسلام في القرم في وقت لم يكونوا يعرفوا اين هي القرم؟؟ ولماذا يقاتلون ويقتلون من اجل القرم!!وفي وقت لم يكن هناك بلد اسمه "اوكرانيا" ولم يكن هناك بلد اسمه"العراق"بل كانت هناك روسيا القيصريه وتركيا العليه وبريطانيا العظمى وفرنسا الحره فمن نحن لنلعب مع الكبار سواء في زمن نيقولا الاول او في زمن فلاديمير بوتين!! سياسيا في العام 1854لم يكن هناك بلد اسمه العراق وكان البلد عباره عن ثلاثه ولايات البصره والموصل وبغداد وهي غير مرتبطه فيما بينها وانما مرتبطه ارتباطا مباشرا بالباب العالي في القسطنطينيه Sun, Mar 02 21:23 PM EST 1 of 13 By Natalia Zinets and Alissa de Carbonnel KIEV/BALACLAVA, Ukraine (Reuters) - Ukraine mobilized for war on Sunday and Washington threatened to isolate Russia economically after President Vladimir Putin declared he had the right to invade his neighbor in Moscow's biggest confrontation with the West since the Cold War.

"This is not a threat: this is actually the declaration of war to my country,"

Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk said in English. Yatsenuik heads a pro-Western government that took power in the former Soviet republic when its Moscow-backed president, Viktor Yanukovich, was ousted last week. Putin secured permission from his parliament on Saturday to use military force to protect Russian citizens in Ukraine and told U.S. President Barack Obama he had the right to defend Russian interests and nationals, spurning Western pleas not to intervene. Russian forces have already bloodlessly seized Crimea, an isolated Black Sea peninsula where Moscow has a naval base. On Sunday, they surrounded several small Ukrainian military outposts there and demanded the Ukrainian troops disarm. Some refused, leading to standoffs, although no shots were fired. As Western countries considered how to respond to the crisis, the United States said it was focused on economic, diplomatic and political measures, but made clear it was not seriously considering military action.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will visit Kiev on Tuesday to show "strong support for Ukrainian sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity, and the right of the Ukrainian people to determine their own future, without outside interference or provocation," the State Department said in a statement.

MORE DEMONSTRATIONS IN EASTERN UKRAINE With Russian forces in control of majority ethnic Russian Crimea, the focus is shifting to eastern swaths of Ukraine, where most ethnic Ukrainians speak Russian as a native language. Those areas saw more demonstrations on Sunday after violent protests on Saturday, and pro-Moscow activists hoisted flags for a second day at government buildings and called for Russia to defend them. Russia has staged war games with 150,000 troops along the land border, but they have so far not crossed. Kiev said Russia had sent hundreds of its citizens across the border to stage the protests. Ukraine's security council ordered the general staff to immediately put all armed forces on highest alert. But Kiev's small and under-equipped military is seen as no match for Russia's superpower might. The Defence Ministry was ordered to stage a call-up of reserves, meaning theoretically all men up to 40 in a country with universal male conscription, though Ukraine would struggle to find extra guns or uniforms for significant numbers of them. Kerry condemned Russia for what he called an "incredible act of aggression" and brandished the threat of economic sanctions. "You just don't, in the 21st century, behave in 19th century fashion by invading another country on a completely trumped-up pretext," Kerry told the CBS program "Face the Nation". He said Moscow still had a "right set of choices" to defuse the crisis. Otherwise, G8 countries and other nations were prepared to "to go to the hilt to isolate Russia". "They are prepared to isolate Russia economically. The rouble is already going down. Russia has major economic challenges," he said. He mentioned visa bans, asset freezes and trade isolation as possible steps. Obama discussed the Ukraine crisis in calls with allies, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister David Cameron. Cameron said they agreed Russia would pay "significant costs" unless it changed course. Analysts said U.S. economic sanctions would likely have little impact on Russia unless they were paired with strong measures by major European nations, which have deeper trade ties with Moscow and are dependent on Russian gas. Ukraine's envoy to the United Nations said Kiev would ask for international military support if Russia expanded its military action in his country. At Kiev's Independence Square, where anti-Yanukovich protesters had camped out for months, thousands demonstrated against Russian military action. Speakers delivered rousing orations and placards read: "Putin, hands off Ukraine!" "If there is a need to protect the nation, we will go and defend the nation," said Oleh, an advertising executive cooking over an open fire at the square where he has been camped for three months. "If Putin wants to take Ukraine for himself, he will fail. We want to live freely and we will live freely." The new government announced it had fired the head of the navy and launched a treason case against him for surrendering Ukraine's naval headquarters to Russian forces in the Crimean port of Sevastopol, where Moscow has a major naval base. REACTION FROM THE WEST Obama spoke to Putin for 90 minutes by telephone on Saturday after the Russian leader declared he had the right to intervene and quickly secured unanimous approval from his parliament. The Kremlin said Putin told Obama that Russian speakers were under threat from Ukraine's new leaders, who took over after Yanukovich fled huge protests against his repression and rejection of a trade deal with the European Union. Putin reiterated that stance in a telephone call with Merkel on Sunday, the Kremlin said, adding he and Merkel agreed that Russia and Germany would continue consultations to seek the "normalization" of the situation. But in a sign of concern among Russian liberals, members of Putin's own human rights council urged him on Sunday not to invade Ukraine, saying threats faced by Russians there were not severe enough to justify sending in troops. Ukraine, which says it has no intention of threatening Russian speakers, has appealed for help to NATO, and directly to Britain and the United States, as co-signatories with Russia to a 1994 accord guaranteeing Ukraine's security. After an emergency meeting of NATO ambassadors in Brussels, the alliance called on Russia to bring its forces back to bases and refrain from interfering in Ukraine. Despite expressing "grave concern", NATO did not agree on any significant measures to apply pressure to Russia, with the West struggling to come up with a forthright response that does not risk pushing the region closer to military conflict.

"We urge both parties to immediately seek a peaceful solution through bilateral dialogue, with international facilitation ... and through the dispatch of international observers under the auspices of the United Nations Security Council or the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe," NATO said in a statement.

Washington on Saturday proposed sending monitors to Ukraine under the U.N. or OSCE flags. So far, the Western response has been largely symbolic. Obama and others suspended preparations for a G8 summit in Sochi, where Russia has just finished staging its $50 billion winter Olympic games. Some countries recalled ambassadors. Britain said its ministers would stay away from the Paralympics due next in Sochi. "Right now, I think we are focused on political, diplomatic and economic options," a senior U.S. official told reporters. "Frankly our goal is to uphold the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine, not to have a military escalation," he added. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier urged world leaders on Sunday to work to calm the crisis and defended Russia's membership of the G8, saying it enabled the West to talk directly with Moscow. RUSSIANS IN CRIMEA Ukraine's military is ill-matched against its neighbor. Britain's International Institute of Strategic Studies estimates Kiev has fewer than 130,000 troops under arms, with planes barely ready to fly and few spare parts for a single submarine. Russia, by contrast, has spent billions under Putin to upgrade and modernize the capabilities of forces that were dilapidated after the breakup of the Soviet Union. Moscow's special units are now seen as equals of the best in the world. In Crimea, Ukraine's tiny contingent made no attempt to oppose the Russians, who bore no insignia on their uniforms but drove vehicles with Russian plates and seized government buildings, airports and other locations in the past three days. Kiev said its troops were encircled in at least three places. It pulled its coast guard vessels out of Crimean ports. Ukraine said its naval fleet's 10 ships were still in Sevastopol and remained loyal to Kiev. Scores of Russian troops with no insignia were camped outside a base of Ukrainian troops at Perevalnoye, on a road from Crimea's capital, Simferopol towards the coast. A representative of the base commander said troops on both sides had reached agreement so no blood would be shed. "We are ready to protect the grounds and our military equipment," Valery Boiko told Reuters television. "We hope for a compromise to be reached, a decision, and as the commander has said, there will be no war." Igor Mamchev, a Ukrainian navy colonel at another small base outside Simferopol, told Ukraine's Channel 5 TV that a truckload of Russian troops had arrived at his checkpoint and told his forces to lay down their arms. "I replied that, as I am a member of the armed forces of Ukraine, under orders of the Ukrainian navy, there could be no discussion of disarmament. In case of any attempt to enter the military base, we will use all means, up to lethal force." A unit of Ukrainian marines was also holed up in a base in the Crimean port of Feodosia, where they refused to disarm. Elsewhere on the occupied peninsula, the Russian troops assumed a lower profile on Sunday after the pro-Moscow Crimean leader said overnight the situation was now "normalized". Putin's justification citing the need to protect Russian citizens was the same as he used to launch a 2008 invasion of Georgia, where Russian forces seized two breakaway regions. In Russia, state-controlled media portray Yanukovich's removal as a coup by dangerous extremists funded by the West and there has been little sign of dissent with that line. In Donetsk, Yanukovich's home city, the local government building was flying the Russian flag for the second day on Sunday. The local authorities have called for a referendum on the region's status, a move Kiev says is illegal. A pro-Russian "self-defence" unit held a second day of protest, attracting about 1,000 demonstrators carrying Russian flags. (Additional reporting by Peter Graff, Sabina Zawadzki, Pavel Polityuk, Timothy Heritage and Stephen Grey in Kiev, Lina Kushch in Donetsk, Peter Apps and Guy Faulconbridge in London, Will Dunham, Arshad Mohammed and Matt Spetalnick in Washington, and Lou Charbonneau at the United Nations; Writing by Peter Graff, Paul Taylor, Frances Kerry and Peter Cooney; Editing by Philippa Fletcher, Meredith Mazzilli and Mohammad Zargham) ====================== Russian markets plunge as Putin tightens Crimea grip Mon, Mar 03 22:00 PM EST 1 of 10 By Lidia Kelly and Alissa de Carbonnel MOSCOW/PEREVALNOYE, Ukraine (Reuters) - Russia paid a heavy financial price on Monday for its military intervention in neighboring Ukraine, with stocks, bonds and the ruble plunging as President Vladimir Putin's forces tightened their grip on the Russian-speaking Crimea region. The Moscow stock market fell 10.8 percent, wiping nearly $60 billion off the value of Russian companies, more than the $51 billion Russia spent on the Winter Olympics in Sochi last month. The central bank spent as much as $12 billion of its reserves to prop up the ruble as investors reacted to tensions with the West over the former Soviet republic. Putin declared at the weekend he had the right to invade Ukraine to protect Russian interests and citizens. Moscow's U.N. envoy told a stormy meeting of the Security Council on Monday that Ukraine's ousted leader Viktor Yanukovich had sent a letter to Putin requesting he use Russia's military to restore law and order in Ukraine. The United States began spelling out its response to Russia's incursion, announcing on Monday night it had suspended all military engagements with Russia over the crisis in Ukraine, including military exercises and port visits, and had put trade and investment talks with Moscow on hold. President Barack Obama met for over two hours on Monday with his national security advisers to discuss what steps the United States and its allies could take to "further isolate" Russia, a White House official said. "Over time this will be a costly proposition for Russia. And now is the time for them to consider whether they can serve their interests in a way that resorts to diplomacy as opposed to force," Obama told reporters earlier. The State Department said the United States was preparing to impose sanctions on Russia over the intervention, although no decisions had yet been made. Members of the U.S. Congress are looking at options including sanctions on Russia's banks and freezing assets of Russian public institutions and private investors, but they said they wanted European countries to step up their involvement. Secretary of State John Kerry will propose ways in which a negotiation between Russia and Ukraine can be overseen by a multilateral organization when he goes to Kiev on Tuesday, Obama said. The European Union threatened unspecified "targeted measures" unless Russia returns its forces to their bases and opens talks with Ukraine's new government. Western leaders have sent a barrage of warnings to Putin against armed action, threatening economic and diplomatic consequences, but are not considering a military response. SHOW OF STRENGTH? In his first public appearance for nearly a week, Putin flew to watch military maneuvers in western Russia in what appeared designed as a show of strength. Russia's Black Sea fleet denied reports it had given Ukrainian forces in Crimea an ultimatum to surrender by early Tuesday or face attack, Interfax news agency said. The United States said any such threat would be a dangerous escalation. Ukraine's acting president said Russia's military presence in Crimea was growing. Ukrainian officials said Russia was building up armor on its side of the 4.5-km (2.7- mile) wide Kerch strait between the Crimean peninsula and southern Russia. Russian forces later began shipping truckloads of troops by ferry into the Crimea region after seizing the border post on the Ukrainian side, Ukraine's border guards spokesman said. A Reuters reporting crew at the ferry terminal in Crimea later on Monday saw no sign of unusual activity. Kiev's U.N. ambassador, Yuriy Sergeyev, said Russia had deployed roughly 16,000 troops to Crimea since last week. Both sides have so far avoided bloodshed, but the market turmoil highlighted damage the crisis could wreak on Russia's vulnerable economy, making it harder to balance the budget and potentially undermining business and public support for Putin. Russian Deputy Economy Minister Andrei Klepach said market "hysteria" would subside but that strains with Brussels and Washington would continue to weigh on the economy. On the ground in Perevalnoye, halfway between the Crimean capital, Simferopol, and the Black Sea, hundreds of Russian troops in trucks and armored vehicles were surrounding two military compounds. The troops, who had no national insignia on their uniforms, were confining Ukrainian soldiers, who have refused to surrender, as virtual prisoners. Ukraine called up reservists on Sunday after Putin's action provoked what British Foreign Secretary William Hague called "the biggest crisis in Europe in the twenty-first century". The U.S. Defense Department said that although it found value in military-to-military relations with Russia, "we have, in light of recent events in Ukraine, put on hold all military-to-military engagements." Rear Admiral John Kirby added that despite media speculation about possible ship movements in the region, "there has been no change to our military posture in Europe or the Mediterranean." NATO allies will hold emergency talks on the crisis on Tuesday, for the second time in three days, following a request from Poland, a neighbor of Ukraine. European Union foreign ministers held out the threat of sanctions against Russia on Monday if Moscow fails to withdraw its troops from Ukraine, while offering to mediate between the two, alongside other international bodies. EU leaders will hold an emergency summit on Thursday. But possible divisions emerged, with the BBC citing a document, inadvertently shown to a photographer, that said Britain opposes trade sanctions on Russia and does not want to shut London's financial capital to Russians in response to the Kremlin's intervention in Ukraine. A spokeswoman for British Prime Minister David Cameron's office said it did not comment on leaked documents. But she added, "The Prime Minister is clear that continuing to violate Ukraine's sovereignty will have costs and consequences." OBSERVER MISSION The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, or OSCE, said it was trying to convene an international contact group to help defuse the crisis after Germany said Chancellor Angela Merkel had persuaded Putin to accept such an initiative. Switzerland, which chairs the pan-European security body, said the group could discuss sending observers to Ukraine to monitor the rights of national minorities. "There will be very, very broad consensus for that monitoring mission. We call on Russia to join that consensus, make the right choice and pull back its forces," U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland told OSCE envoys in Vienna. The Russian central bank raised its key lending rate by 1.5 percentage points after the ruble fell to all-time lows. Tension over Ukraine also knocked 2 to 3 percent off European stock markets and 1 percent off Wall Street, and sent safe haven gold to a four-month high. Chicago wheat futures rose more than 5 percent and corn about 4 percent amid fears of disruption to shipments from the Black Sea, a major grain-exporting zone. Russian gas monopoly Gazprom, which supplies Europe through Ukraine, was down nearly 14 percent. Gazprom's finance chief warned Ukraine that it may raise gas prices from next month, accusing Kiev of a patchy payments record, but said gas transit to Europe was normal. Ukraine has been stocking up on gas imports in the past few days to beat a feared rise, a spokesman for its gas transit monopoly said. Ukraine's pro-Western prime minister, Arseny Yatseniuk, whose government took power when Yanukovich, a Russian ally, fled on February 21 after three months of street protests, said Putin had effectively declared war on his nation. Yatseniuk said the government planned to cut spending by 14 to 16 percent as Ukraine prepared for talks on Tuesday with the International Monetary Fund to avert the danger of default. RUSSIAN FLAGS FLYING Russian forces seized Crimea, an isolated Black Sea peninsula with an ethnic Russian majority, without firing a shot. All eyes are now on whether Russia makes a military move in predominantly Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine, where pro-Moscow demonstrators have marched and raised Russian flags over public buildings in several cities in the last three days. Pro-Russian protesters besieged lawmakers inside the regional government building in the eastern city of Donetsk, Yanukovich's hometown, on Monday in the latest such action. Russia has staged war games with 150,000 troops along the land border, but so far they have not crossed. Kiev says Moscow is orchestrating the protests to justify a wider invasion. At an emergency Security Council meeting, Russia's U.N. ambassador and Western envoys hurled allegations at each other for 2-1/2 hours.

"Under the influence of Western countries, there are open acts of terror and violence," Russian envoy Vitaly Churkin quoted the letter from Yanukovich as saying, brandishing a copy of it. "People are being persecuted for language and political reasons."

Churkin repeated Moscow's view that Yanukovich was Ukraine's legitimate leader, not interim President Oleksander Turchinov. U.S. envoy Samantha Power said there was no evidence ethnic Russians or Russian-speakers in Ukraine were under threat. Power said there was "no legal basis" for Russia to justify its military deployments in Ukraine through an invitation from the regional prime minister of the Crimea, adding only Ukraine's parliament could do that. Churkin shot back that Power appeared to have gotten all her information about Ukraine "from U.S. TV." A German spokesman said Merkel believed it was not too late to resolve the Ukrainian crisis by political means. The German leader, who speaks fluent Russian, has had several long telephone calls with the German-speaking Putin since the crisis erupted with mass protests in Kiev, creating a major policy dilemma for Berlin, which is heavily dependent on Russian gas and has close economic ties. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met his German counterpart, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in Geneva on Monday, a Russian diplomat said. Lavrov will meet EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton in Madrid on Tuesday, RIA Novosti agency said. On Kiev's Independence Square, or Maidan, where anti-Yanukovich protesters manned barricades for three months, crowds were smaller than in recent days as people returned to work. "Crimea, we are with you!" read one placard. "Putin - Hitler of the 21st century," read another. (Additional reporting by Peter Graff, Sabina Zawadzki, Pavel Polityuk, Natalia Zinets, Timothy Heritage and Stephen Grey in Kiev, Lina Kushch in Donetsk, Peter Apps in London, Steve Holland, Phil Stewart, Jeff Mason, Mark Felsenthal and Patricia Zengerle in Washington, and Lou Charbonneau at the United Nations; Writing by Paul Taylor, Alistair Lyon and Peter Cooney; Editing by Janet Lawrence and Mohammad Zargham) ==================== Russia allowed to have 25,000 troops in Crimea since 1999...and other facts you didn’t know Published time: March 04, 2014 20:07 Edited time: March 05, 2014 03:33 Get short URL Ukrainian marines look at a Russian ship floating out of the Sevastopol bay on March 4, 2014 (AFP Photo / Viktor Drachev) Share on tumblrTrends Ukraine turmoil Tags Conflict, Politics, Russia, Ukraine Ukraine’s statement at the UN that 16,000 Russian soldiers have been deployed to Crimea has caused a frenzy among Western media which chooses to ignore that those troops have been there since the late 1990s in accordance with a Kiev-Moscow agreement. Western media describes the situation in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea as if a full-scale Russian invasion were under way, with headlines like: “Ukraine says Russia sent 16,000 troops to Crimea” and “Ukraine crisis deepens as Russia sends more troops into Crimea,” as well as “What can Obama do about Russia's invasion of Crimea?” It seems they have chosen to simply ignore the fact that those Russian troops have been stationed in Crimea for over a decade. Russia’s representative to the UN, Vitaly Churkin, reminded on Tuesday that the deal surrounding the Black Sea Fleet allows Russia to station a contingent of up to 25,000 troops in Ukraine. However, US and British media have mostly chosen to turn a deaf ear. People watch a Russian Navy ship enter the Crimean port city of Sevastopol March 2, 2014 (Reuters / Baz Ratner) Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov underlined that the country’s military “strictly executes the agreements which stipulate the Russian fleet’s presence in Ukraine, and follows the stance and claims coming from the legitimate authority in Ukraine and in this case the legitimate authority of the Autonomous Republic Crimea as well.” So here are the facts, numbers, and details of this long-standing (but rarely cited) deal: 1) The Black Sea Fleet has been disputed between Russia and Ukraine since the collapse of the Soviet Union back in 1991. 2) In 1997, the sides finally managed to find common ground and signed three agreements determining the fate of the military bases and vessels in Crimea. Two years later, in 1999, the Russian and Ukrainian parliaments ratified them. Russia has received 81.7 percent of the fleet’s ships after paying the Ukrainian government a compensation of US$526.5 million. 3) Moscow also annually writes off $97.75 million of Kiev’s debt for the right to use Ukrainian waters and radio frequency resources, and for the environmental impact caused by the Black Sea Fleet’s operations. 4) According to the initial agreement, the Russian Black Sea Fleet was to stay in Crimea until 2017, but the deal was later prolonged for another 25 years. 5) The 1997 deal allows the Russian navy to have up to 25,000 troops, 24 artillery systems with a caliber smaller than 100 mm, 132 armored vehicles, and 22 military planes on Ukrainian territory. Ukrainian marines look at a Russian ship floating out of the Sevastopol bay on March 4, 2014 (AFP Photo / Viktor Drachev) 6) In compliance with those accords, there are currently five Russian naval units stationed in the port city of Sevastopol in the Crimean peninsula: - The 30th Surface Ship Division formed by the 11th Antisubmarine Ship Brigade, which includes the Black Sea Fleet’s flagship guard missile cruiser Moskva as well as Kerch, Ochakov, Smetlivy, Ladny, and Pytlivy vessels, and the 197th Landing Ship Brigade, consisting of seven large amphibious vessels; - The 41st Missile Boat Brigade, which includes the 166th Fast Attack Craft Division, consisting of Bora and Samum hovercrafts as well as small missile ships Mirazh and Shtil, and 295th missile Boat Division; - The 247th Separate Submarine Division, consisting of two diesel submarines – B-871 Alrosa and B-380 Svyatoy Knyaz Georgy; - The 68th Harbor Defense Ship Brigade formed by the 400th Antisubmarine Ship Battalion of four vessels and 418 Mine Hunting Ship Division, which consist of four ships as well; - The 422nd Separate Hydrographic Ship Division, which includes Cheleken, Stvor, Donuzlav and GS-402 survey vessels as well as a group of hydrographic boats. 7) Besides the naval units, Moscow also has two airbases in Crimea, which are situated in the towns of Kacha and Gvardeysky. 8) The Russian coastal forces in Ukraine consist of the 1096th Separate Anti-Aircraft Missile Regiment in Sevastopol and the 810th Marine Brigade, which hosts around 2,000 marines. (Several other coastal units of the Black Sea Fleet are located in Russia’s Krasnodar Region, including the 11th Separate Coastal Missile Brigade in Anapa, the 382th Separate Marine Battalion, and a naval reconnaissance station in Temryuk). Last week, Russia’s Federation Council unanimously approved President Vladimir Putin’s request to send the country’s military forces to Ukraine to ensure peace and order in the region “until the socio-political situation in the country is stabilized.” However, the final say about deploying troops lies with Putin, who hasn’t yet made such a decision, stressing that deploying military force would be a last resort. Authorities in the Ukrainian Autonomous Republic of Crimea – where more than half the population is Russian – requested Moscow’s assistance after the self-proclaimed government in Kiev introduced a law abolishing the use of languages other than Ukrainian in official circumstances. People watch a Russian Navy ship enter the Crimean port city of Sevastopol March 2, 2014 (Reuters / Baz Ratner) ====================== In Ukraine's Crimea, a tense and surreal standoff Thu, Mar 06 06:16 AM EST 1 of 4 By Alissa de Carbonnel KERCH, Ukraine (Reuters) - Holed up on their bases, Ukraine's besieged servicemen and the Russians surrounding them in Crimea are locked in a standoff that at times is tense and at others surreal. Almost a week after Russian forces began their swift and bloodless takeover of the Ukrainian Black Sea peninsula, there is a standoff as the two sides dig in and play a waiting game. The Russians have swatted down isolated attempts by the Ukrainian forces to claw back control but stopped short of using major force. There has been no big clash and no deaths. "Where it was possible they made a show of it ... They came and pushed the door in, but you can't come push our door," said Major Alexei Nikiforov, deputy commander of a Ukrainian marine battalion in Kerch, just across a narrow strait from Russia. Russian navy ships have blockaded the Kerch Strait linking the Black Sea to the Sea of Azov, Ukrainian officials say, portraying it as part of efforts to seal off the Ukrainian servicemen and force them to surrender or change sides. Under his breath, a fellow officer of Nikiforov mumbled: "They are trying to break us." Deadlines that now seem a bluff have come and gone: ultimatums for the Ukrainian forces to surrender and swear an oath to Crimea's regional administration, now effectively under Moscow's command. Moscow has moved some 16,000 troops onto the Crimean peninsula in addition to its forces already there, the Ukrainian government says. Ukraine has fewer than 20,000 navy and other military personnel stranded on bases across Crimea. Outgunned but loyal to Kiev, they want to avoid confrontation with Russian forces with whom they have long cohabited on the Crimean peninsula, which is home to a Russian Black Sea Fleet's base. When Russian-speaking gunmen clad in black forced their way into a Ukrainian border control post in Kerch overnight on Monday, there was no battle. "The first shot fired would escalate the conflict, so we decided not to use arms to defend the base," said Captain Sergei Shamshurov, an aide to the commander of the border control post. The fathers and grandfathers of some of the men involved in this crisis fought on the same side in the Soviet armed forces before the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. Many have relatives in Russia. WARNING SHOTS In Kerch, Ukrainian and Russian servicemen stand around casually, weapons unloaded, an arm's length from each other. "We are with them as with our own," said a young Ukrainian wearing a traditional fur hat and combat fatigues. Warning shots fired over the heads of Ukrainian air force pilots who tried to take back their war planes at the Belbek military airfield, on another side of the peninsula, appear to be the only shots fired so far. During negotiations at Belbek, which ended with the pilots returning to their barracks, some of the Ukrainians passed their time by playing football. The Russians simply looked on, showing no emotion. "It's like they are robots. When you try to talk to them, they only crack jokes. We gave up," said Shamshurov, who has remained at the Kerch border control post where they offered the use of their toilet to the intruders. "We still do what we did everyday and raise the flag ... We have not surrendered. We have not betrayed our oath." On Sunday, Ukraine's newly appointed navy commander publicly changed sides, and Russian state television has been touting a string of other unconfirmed defections in an effort to pile pressure on the Ukrainian troops. Some Ukrainian servicemen saw their Slavic brothers as protection - not against Ukrainian nationalists, as Russian media and officials suggest, but against pro-Russian mobs that have surrounded bases in response to inflammatory media reports. "The presence of an army from our neighboring country is irritating, but at the moment it is standing between us and our people who want some kind of radical change," Nikiforov said, choosing his words cautiously. "All decisions must be made through the ballot boxes and not with clubs." On the other side, there have also been misleading media reports of Russians overrunning bases, apparently to portray the enemy in a more negative light or perhaps to stir foreign governments in to action. Ukrainian television has aired messages from people in other parts of the country wishing the troops strength. TCH TV showed one man hugging his daughter and urging: "Don't give in to provocations." How long can the Ukrainian forces hold out and how long will the Russians' patience last is unclear. The West is pushing for Russia to return troops to barracks, and accept international monitors in Crimea. The next flashpoint could be the newly installed, pro-Russian authorities' planned referendum on Crimea's future on March 30. Until then, the waiting game could go on. "We hope our politicians put away their ambitions and don't make us shoot at one another," said Nikiforov. "At the end of the day, we are people who follow orders. Today we smile, but tomorrow we might get order to shoot." (Reporting by Timothy Heritage; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)