FEODOSIA, Crimea -- It started at about 4:15 a.m. on March 24, with dull explosions echoing over Feodosia. Russian soldiers and Russian-backed Crimean self-defense forces threw stun grenades into the territory of the Ukrainian 1st Separate Marine Battalion.
Two
helicopters circled and hovered. There was machine-gun
fire from the Russian side, and fists from the Ukrainian side. But the
base was quickly taken by three Russian armored personnel carriers full of special-force troops. By then, there were 60-80 Ukrainian marine holdouts left at the base, out of a full complement of 300 marines.
However, the marines say their commander, Dmitry Delyatitsky, was taken from the base in a helicopter this morning and hiswhereabouts are still unknown.
By 5.30 a.m., the Russian flag was flying.
Smoke poured from a small fire on the front of the
barracks.
More armored personnel carriers continued to block the entrance, belching
out smoke and guarded by a row of Russian troops and a small local Cossack
brigade.
By 6 a.m., it
was all over. The Ukrainians, up to 80 of them, were taken away and returned later in the day. It was unclear whether Russians were still holding any of the Ukrainian commanders who organized one of the last holdouts on teh Crimean peninsula.
The three Russian armored personnel carriers drove back out of
the base, masked soldiers sitting on top to wave to locals who had gathered to
applaud “nashi” – “ours.”
Ten minutes later, three Russian army lorries, their
canvas backs laced closed, drove away from the base towards an unknown
destination.
Pale faces of Ukrainians peered out of a gap in the back of one.
“There go
the Ukrainians,” said one woman in her 40s, who had been awaken in her house
opposite by the noise and come out to watch. “Thank God it’s all over now. They
shouldn’t have been here, this is Russian territory.”
The same
sentiment was echoed by everyone there.
“Now we have can peace again,” said a
woman called Valya, who had taken a detour on her way to work to see what was happening.
“With the Russians, everything is peaceful – we’re all Russian here. Those
Ukrainians had a deadline to leave by March 22. They didn’t leave, so of course
they had to be forced out by our soldiers.”
More armored
personnel carriers that had been under camouflage nets in the field next to the
base were moved into the base over the next hour, as were more soldiers.
Locals
began to wander away. A woman from the local female Kremlin-backed self-defense brigade, who
had been guarding the entrance in a bullet-proof vest, brought out a tray with
dainty glasses of tea for the brigade.
Kyiv Post staff writer Lily Hyde can be reached at [email protected].
Editor’s Note: This article has been produced with support from the project www.mymedia.org.ua, financially supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark, and implemented by a joint venture between NIRAS and BBC Media Action.The content in this article may not necessarily reflect the views of the Danish government, NIRAS and BBC Action Media.
