Russian President Vladimir Putin, at a televised press conference in Moscow today, didn't rule out further military intervention in Ukraine to carry out what he described as a humanitarian mission to protect Ukraine's millions of ethnic Russians. “We need to send a signal to the people who are living in the southeast of Ukraine,” Putin said.
Putin said, however, that “there is no reason yet” to use military force.
He also said that Viktor Yanukovych, the Ukrainian president ousted on Feb. 22 by the EuroMaidan Revolution, has no political future in Ukraine and that he told him so.
Putin also said he saw Yanukovych two days earlier and that the ex-Ukrainian leader denied that he gave any orders to shoot the nearly 100 protesters killed during the anti-government demonstrations in January and February. Putin said he thinks snipers working for the political opposition were behind the shootings that killed protesters and police, but he doesn’t know for sure.
He said that the current leadership of Ukraine — interim President Oleksandr Turchynov and interim Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk — are not legitimate because they seized power through unconstitutional means.
He also said he may not recognize the results of Ukraine’s May 25 presidential election if the chaos in Kyiv continues.
When asked whether the Russian invasion of Crimea violated the 1994 Budapest Memorandum signed by the United States., Untded Kingdom, Russia and Ukraine that provides security assurances for Ukraine’s sovereignty, Putin seemed to suggest that the revolution in Kyiv had nullified the agreement.
Putin said that it was “hard not to agree with Russian experts who say that a new state could appear” in Ukraine and said that Russia would “not sign any fundamental documents with this new state.”
Putin said that state-owned gas giant Gazprom “does not want to extend the current ‘special’ price [for gas imports to Ukraine], and that “the Ukrainian government assumes the responsibility to pay off the debt that accumulated last year,” estimated at nearly $2 billion.
He refuted Western accusations that Russian involvement in Crimea breached international law, saying that “all our actions [in Ukraine] are legitimate.”
Putin claimed that forces on the ground in Crimea were there to “the defense of our armed facilities,” which include the Russian Black Sea Fleet based in Sevastopol. “They had been receiving threats,” he said.
Putin suggested that Moscow might recognize the winner of the May 25 presidential election unless the “terror that is happening in Kyiv” continues.
The Russian president acknowledged that the current Ukrainian parliament is “partially legitimate,” but said that the leaders of the government were illegitimate because they came to power as the result of a “constitutional coup.”
He called the situation in Ukraine chaotic, which means that “anyone could come to power,” nothing that amidst chaos in Germany, “there were units…that helped bring (Adolf) Hitler to power.”
He said that a change of power may be necessary, but that it must come “according to the constitution.”
By contrast, Putin said that the new prime minister of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, Serhiy Aksyonov, is legimate cand came to power legally because the peninsula’s government has “followed all of the rules.”
He signaled support for Crimean separation by saying “all the people who live in a certain territory have the right to decide their own future,” but said that Russia would not promote secessionist sentiment.
Putin said that Russia gave asylum to Yanukovych “out of humanitarian concern. The easiest way to get rid of a president is death. I think they would have killed him there.”
Putin spoke well of ex-Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, Yanukovych’s political enemy recently released from prison.
Putin said Tymoshenko “mentioned that she wanted to go to Moscow. We have had very successful cooperation with different Ukrainian authorities representing different political views…we will not block her from coming to Moscow.”
Kyiv Post staff writer Isaac D. Webb can be reached at [email protected]
