Putin signs treaty to add Crimea; 2 killed are takeover’s first fatalities

Associated Press

MOSCOW

In a gilded Kremlin hall used by czars, Vladimir Putin redrew Russia’s borders Tuesday by declaring the Crimean Peninsula part of the motherland — provoking a surge of emotion among Russians who lament the loss of empire and denunciations from Western leaders who called Putin a threat to the world.

In an ominous sign, a Ukrainian serviceman and a member of a local self-defense brigade were killed by gunfire in Crimea just hours after Putin’s speech, the first fatalities stemming from the Russian takeover.

While Putin’s action was hailed by jubilant crowds in Moscow and cities across Russia, Ukraine’s new government called the Russian president a threat to the “civilized world and international security,” and the U.S. and Europe threatened tougher sanctions against Moscow.

Vice President Joe Biden, meeting with anxious European leaders in Poland, denounced what he called “nothing more than a land grab.”

“The world has seen through Russia’s actions and has rejected the flawed logic,” Biden said.

In an emotional 40-minute speech televised live from the Kremlin’s chandeliered St. George hall, Putin said the time has come to correct a historical injustice and stand up to Western pressure by incorporating Crimea.

“In people’s hearts and minds, Crimea has always been an integral part of Russia,” he declared.

He dismissed Western criticism of Sunday’s Crimean referendum — in which residents of the strategic Black Sea peninsula voted overwhelmingly to break off from Ukraine and join Russia — as a manifestation of the West’s double standards.

“They tell us that we are violating the norms of international law. First of all, it’s good that they at least remember that international law exists,” Putin said, pointing at what he called the U.S. trampling of international norms in wars in Serbia, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya.

“Our Western partners led by the United States prefer to proceed not from international law, but the law of might in their practical policies,” he said.

Often interrupted by raucous applause, Putin said the rights of ethnic Russians in Ukraine had been abused by the new Ukrainian government and insisted Crimea’s vote to join Russia was legitimate and reflected its right for self-determination.

Denouncing what he called Western arrogance, hypocrisy and pressure, Putin warned that the West must drop its stubborn refusal to take Russian concerns into account. He pointed at NATO’s eastward expansion, the alliance’s U.S.-led missile defense plans and, finally, the Western moves to pull Ukraine into its orbit.

“If you push a spring too hard, at some point it will spring back,” he said. “You always need to remember this.”

Only hours after Putin boasted that the Russian takeover of Crimea was conducted without a single shot, a Ukrainian military spokesman said a Ukrainian serviceman was killed and another injured when a military facility in Crimea was stormed Tuesday by armed men.

A Crimea police spokeswoman, Olga Kondrashova, later was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying that a Ukrainian serviceman and a member of a local self-defense brigade were killed by gunfire coming from the same location, and two other people were wounded.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk declared the violence showed the conflict “has gone from the political stage to the military by the fault of the Russians.”