Washington was working to find out if Moscow has demanded Ukrainian leaders surrender or face an all-out assault.
“If true” it would be “a dangerous escalation of the situation and we would hold Russia directly responsible,” Agence France-Presse quoted a State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki as saying.
Russian Black Sea Fleets denied that it gave an ultimatum to Ukrainian forces in the strategic Crimea to surrender by 5 a.m. on Tuesday or face an assault.
The news came after Interfax quoted an unnamed source in the Ukrainian Defense Ministry earlier on Monday as saying a deadline to surrender at 0300 GMT had been set by the Black Sea Fleet’s commander.
However, a Ukrainian defense ministry spokesman told Agence France-Presse that Russian forces have given Ukrainian soldiers an ultimatum to surrender their positions in Crimea or face an assault.
“The ultimatum is to recognize the new Crimean authorities, lay down our weapons and leave, or be ready for an assault,” said Vladyslav Seleznyov, the regional ministry spokesman for the Crimea.
He said base commanders had informed the ministry of “different times” for the ultimatum to expire.
The ultimatum, Interfax said earlier, was issued by Alexander Vitko, the fleets commander, Reuters reported............http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/world/2014/03/03/Pro-Russia-soldiers-seize-terminal-in-Ukrainian-city.html
3/3/14
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Russian Defense Ministry dismisses Ukraine ultimatum reports as ‘total nonsense’
Media reports about an alleged Russian ultimatum made to the
Ukrainian armed forces in Crimea are “total nonsense,” a spokesman for
the Russian Defense Ministry said.
He said that no ultimatum had been made to the Ukrainian forces,
Interfax reports.
“We have become accustomed to the daily accusations by the
Ukrainian media of carrying out some sort of military actions
against our Ukrainian colleagues," Russian Black Sea Fleet
representative said, adding that “those who want to pit us
against each other in the Crimea won’t succeed.”
- “There’s nothing new about such disinformation. It’s clear who is behind this. Those ‘puppeteers’ have been unable to come up with anything new since Yugoslavia, Iraq and Syria,” he added.
- Also, a source in the Russian Defense Ministry told RT that they are unaware of any Russian ultimatum toward the Ukrainian forces in Crimea.
- The source revealed that they had only heard about the alleged ultimatum from a report by Interfax-Ukraine news agency.
3/3/14
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