Ukraine: parliament calls for UN Security Council meeting as international tensions mount

(Vatican Radio)-- Ukraine’s parliament called Friday for a meeting of the U.N. Security Council to discuss the current crisis facing their country.
Listen to this report by Stefan Bos:

Ukraine’s interior minister said his nation is under an "armed invasion" after Russian troops reportedly took over two key airports on the Crimean Peninsula. The remarks came shortly after the United States expressed concern that Russia is preparing for a possible military intervention in Ukraine.

“I consider what has happened to be an armed invasion and occupation in violation of all international agreements and norms,” said Interior Minister Arsen Avakov in a statement, after Russian naval forces took over a military airport near the port of Sevastopol where the Russian Black Sea fleet has a base.

Armed men also took over the other main Crimean airport, Simferopol, on Friday morning.

Witnesses said they wearing the same gear as the ones who seized government buildings in the city on Thursday and raised the Russian flag.

In Washington, U.S. officials also said they were closely monitoring massive Russian military war games underway near Ukraine's borders to see whether Moscow may be putting troops in position to move into Ukraine.


NO INVASION?


An official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told American media that Washington still believes that Russia doesn't plan to order its forces into its tumultuous neighbor.


It was not immediately clear whether the latest reported occupation of airports had changed the official's position.


But the official cautioned that the U.S. is monitoring the area 24 hours a day to see whether Russia is preparing to secure supply and transportation routes that would be crucial to any such movement.


Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has told U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry that the exercises were previously planned and were not being carried out because of the upheaval in Ukraine, echoing an earlier conversation between U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

However Western observers say Russia's dispatch of fighter jets Thursday to patrol borders and drills by some 150,000 Russian troops -- almost the entirety of its force in the western part of the country -- signal strong determination not to lose Ukraine to the West.

GOVERNMENT PRESSURED

The dramatic developments have posed an immediate challenge to Ukraine's new authorities as they named an interim government for the country, whose population is divided in loyalties between Russia and the West.


"We are not happy with the people who were elected into the new government. Most of them are veterans in the political elite," a man said on Kyiv's Independence Square, where protesters have demanded more freedom. A woman is somewhat more optimistic saying, "It's good that Arseniy Yatsenyuk is prime minister. He has experience and I believe everything will be okay."



Yet, the government faces an uphill battle ahead of upcoming presidential elections on May 25.


Besides tensions on Crimea, Prime Minister Yatsenyuk has warned his nation faces imminent economic collapse saying "37 billion dollars of credit received disappeared in an unknown direction", while about "70 billion dollars were paid out of Ukraine's financial system into off-shore bank accounts" over the past three years.


It added to pressure on ousted President Viktor Yanukovich, who is reportedly hiding in Russia, after an arrest warrant was issued over the death of more than 80 people during recent clashes between pro-EU protesters and security forces.