Unable to resolve tensions with the largely pro-Russian autonomous region of Crimea, Kiev is bombarding Moscow with accusations and warnings. Some politicians have even threatened to restock Ukraine’s nuclear arsenal.
Facts you need to know about Crimea and why it is in turmoil.
Throughout Friday, Russian diplomats and the military had to
refute media speculation and explain that the armed people at the
Crimean airports in Simferopol and Sevastopol weren’t
Russian troops.
“There are no troops whatsoever. No Russian troops, at least…
Some civilians claiming to be representing groups of
‘self-defense of Crimea’ arrived at Simferopol airport overnight,
but they retreated and nothing happened,” Russian ambassador
to the EU, Vladimir Chizhov, told Euronews.
The Russian Black Sea fleet has been stationed in Sevastopol
since the 18th century. Following the collapse of the Soviet
Union it remained there, according to an agreement between Russia
and Ukraine.
Any movements of the Russian military within Crimea are in line
with the existing arrangements with Ukraine on the deployment of
military assets in the former Soviet republic, Russia’s UN
ambassador Vitaly Churkin said.
“We have an arrangement with Ukraine about the stationing of
the Russian Black Sea fleet in Sevastopol and we are acting
within the framework of that agreement,” Churkin told
reporters.
The ultra-right “Svoboda” (Liberty) party has remained
unconvinced, with one of its representatives in the Ukrainian
parliament warning that if Russia doesn’t tread carefully it will
be dealing with a nuclear power.
"We’ll regain our status as a nuclear power and that’ll
change the conversation. Ukraine has all the technological means
needed to create a nuclear arsenal – which would take us about
three to six months,” Svoboda party MP Mikhail Golovko said.
The rhetoric, which contradicts the international nuclear
non-proliferation treaty Ukraine signed in 1994, is not new for
the Svoboda party, one of the driving forces behind the Maidan
uprising. Its leader, Oleg Tyagnibok, already promised that the
country would go nuclear while he was running for the presidency
in 2009.
But how feasible is the prospect of Ukraine ‘regaining nuclear
status’?
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, former republics Ukraine,
Belarus and Kazakhstan agreed to either dispose of or send over
to Russia their nuclear arsenals, which they held while being
part of the USSR.
In 1994 a trilateral agreement was signed by the presidents of
the United States, Russia and Ukraine, stipulating the process of
Kiev’s nuclear disarmament. In 1996 Ukraine officially lost its
nuclear status, having gotten rid of the whole of its stockpile.
But the country still draws almost half of its energy from atomic
power, and is home to Europe's largest nuclear power plant.
While the uranium Ukraine gets from Russia for its reactors is
low-enriched, reactor waste is quite enough to make a so-called
dirty bomb. The country possesses manpower and know-how to do
that as well as delivery vehicles for nuclear payload, which
don’t have to be too sophisticated.
The Ukrainian MP’s nuclear rhetoric is highly counterproductive
amid the current turmoil, political and economic analyst Martin
Seiff from The Globalist news website said.
“These threats are probably extreme, irresponsible bluff, but
it’s very alarming to hear them being made in the first
place,” he told RT. “The new government which has now
emerged in Kiev and other figures, like this opposition MP, need
to act in a responsible manner to earn the deserved respect,
trust and cooperation of the international community. That
comment is disastrously counterproductive and should be seen as
such.”
American geopolitical analyst Eric Draitser takes the comment
more seriously, in view of the financial aid the US and EU have
been promising the new Ukrainian government.
“The money that we can’t use to feed the poor and the hungry
in the United States and in Europe – that money is going to
support Nazis in Ukraine with nuclear ambitions, who are looking
to destabilize the region, and whose sole goal is the destruction
of Russia,” Draitser told RT.
So far the US has been hard on nations it suspected of a nuclear
build-up, like Iran. It would be curious to see how it reacts in
case the idea of restocking nuclear arsenal gains popularity with
more politicians in Kiev.