Putin signs Crimea annexation, conflict turns to military phase

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed on March 18 an agreement with the Crimean government on the annexation of the Crimean Republic and Sebastopol by the Russian Federation. Among other points, it declares Crimea’s border with other regions of Ukraine to be the new Russian border. The delineation of its coastline will occur based on Russia’s international agreement and the norms and principles of international law, the agreement cited. All of Crimea’s residents are now Russian citizens and the peninsula is supposed to integrate into the economic, financial and state systems of Russia by Jan. 1, 2015. Elections will be held in September 2015. Until 2016, military conscripts will serve exclusively in Crimea.

All the property and arms of the military units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces have become the state property of the Crimean Republic, said on March 18 Sergei Aksyonov, the Crimean prime minister. The Crimean government has also blocked as of March 14 the bank accounts of the State Treasury of Ukraine, halting the transfer of tax and customs revenue to the Ukrainian government, reported the Interfax-Ukrayina news agency on March 18, citing a Crimean state official.

Ukrainian soldiers can freely leave the Crimean peninsula, Russian Presidential Administration Press Secretary Dmitry Pyeskov told the BBC on March 18. “They should make a choice,” he said. “They can join the Crimean army, which will become a part of the Russian army. If they don’t want to, they are free to leave Crimea’s territory.” Ukrainian naval border officers have begun to abandon Crimean territory, reported the Interfax-Ukrayina news agency on March 18, citing a border service press release.  They have joined border units that were transferred to Odesa several weeks ago.

Russian soldiers killed a Ukrainian warrant officer and injured a caption during a March 18 attack on a military unit in Simferopol, reported the Ukrainian Defense Ministry. They were targeted by sniper fire. The remaining soldiers were beaten, deprived of their arms and arrested. Medical workers and journalists were denied access to the unit. “The attackers were dressed in the military forms of the soldiers of the Russian Armed Forces without distinguishing badges and armed with automatic weapons and sniper cartridges,” the Defense Ministry said. The unit’s commander is being detained and pressured to join the Crimean army. In response, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry announced on March 18 that it has given permission to its soldiers in the Crimean Republic to use their arms.

With the killing by Russian soldiers, Ukraine’s conflict with Russia has gone from its political to military phase, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said on March 18. He said he ordered Defense Minister Ihor Teniukh to contact the Armed Forces of the Russia, U.S. and Great Britain, which are the guarantors of Ukraine’s territorial integrity based on the 1994 Budapest Memorandum. “The full responsibility for the development and escalation of the military conflict after Vladimir Putin’s speech today lies personally with the Russian president and leadership,” Yatsenyuk said. The Russian army’s gunfire is a war crime and appealed to the Russian delegation in the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to stop blocking its monitoring mission.

Zenon Zawada: The Ukrainian government is faced with the dilemma of liquidating its bases in Crimea or fighting a war. In the interest if minimalizing casualties and destruction of property, it would be better to surrender in order to focus on the defense of the Ukrainian mainland, which is likely to come under military assault in the next several days, despite assurances to the contrary from Putin yesterday.

From the economic point of view, it would also be better for Ukraine to recognize the loss of Crimea (though an official declaration would be a political suicide for the interim government, despite claiming to consider themselves as the “kamikaze government”). If the Ukrainian government recognizes Crimea as its territory, it will have to continue paying pensions for its residents (about UAH 1 bln each month) while at the same time not receiving any revenue from Crimean taxpayers.

Additionally, if Ukraine does not introduce customs control on the border of Crimea (and there is no working Ukrainian custom service on Russian-Crimean border), it will lose revenue from custom duties and open its border to contraband from the Russian Federation.