President Vladimir Putin put Russian troops on high alert to stage war games in the Western Military District,near Ukraine,on Wednesday at 1400 hours,Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said.Russia was also taking measures to guarantee the safety of facilities,infrastructure and arsenals of its Black Sea Fleet in Crimea,where Russia leases a naval base from Ukraine.
Ethnic Russians staged a protest in Crimea,saying Crimea was Russian and calling for independence from Ukraine.Most of the Crimean penninsula's population is ethnic Russian.Eastern Ukraine is also heavily ethnic Russian and looks to Moscow for support,while Western Ukraine is the center of Ukrainian nationalism and leans to Western Europe and the United States.*
In the Ukrainian capital Kiev,the Western protest movement's Euromaidan Council appointed several interim officials.Former economy minister Arseny Yatseniuk was named interim prime minister;career diplomat Andriy Deschytsya,foreign minister;and former economic minister and deputy central bank head Oleksandr Shlapak,finance minister.
The new ministers must engage in talks with the IMF to secure the country's finances,as Russia will probably cancel its 15 billion dollar support package extended to Moscow ally Victor Yanukovych,now believed to be in hiding in Crimea-perhaps in the Russian naval base.The EU and US have also expressed a willingness to financially aid the fledgling government in Kiev.*
The Russian military alert announced Wednesday raised a red flag in Western circles in light of Putin's actions of 2008,when he invaded the Republic of Georgia to defend ethnic Russians in two breakaway regions there,and recognised their independence after a brief war.Any Russian invasion of Ukraine would be a grave mistake,US Secretary of State John Kerry warned on Wednesday.
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