President Vladimir Putin flew in to Crimea yesterday, marking the Soviet victory in World War II and proclaiming the success of the peninsula’s seizure from a Ukraine that Russia says has been taken over by fascists.
The head of Nato, locked in its gravest confrontation with Russia since the Cold War, condemned Putin’s visit to Crimea, whose annexation in March has not been recognised by Western powers. He also renewed doubts over an assurance by the Kremlin leader that he had pulled back troops from the Ukrainian border.
Meanwhile later in the evening the US also criticised Putin's visit to Crimea as provocative and repeated the US rejection of Moscow’s annexation of the Black Sea peninsula.
Russian President’s visit is a provocation intended to escalate crisis
“This trip is provocative and unnecessary. Crimea belongs to Ukraine and we don’t recognise, of course, the illegal and illegitimate steps by Russia in that regard,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters at her daily briefing. The US has not seen a withdrawal of Russian forces from its border with Ukraine announced by Putin earlier this week, the spokeswoman added, urging Moscow to calm tensions.
“We want Russia to take de-escalatory steps. We believe they can influence the actions of separatists on the ground.
“There is more they can do. And, obviously, President Putin’s trip to Crimea is not in the direction we are looking for,” she said.
Psaki acknowledged that US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov held their second telephone call in as many days to discuss Ukraine. She said there were no firm plans for new meetings on Ukraine between Washington and Moscow.
According to Russia’s Foreign ministry, in yesterday’s talk Lavrov called for urgent dialogue, mediated by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, between Kiev and southeastern regions of Ukraine. Psaki repeated the US view that Ukraine must be represented in any talks about its future.
The government in Kiev called Putin’s visit, his first since the takeover of the region two months ago, a “provocation” that was intended deliberately to escalate the crisis.
Watching a military parade in Sevastopol on the Black Sea, Putin said: “I am sure that 2014 will go into the annals of our whole country as the year when the nations living here firmly decided to be together with Russia, affirming fidelity to the historical truth and the memory of our ancestors.”
Earlier in the day, he had presided over the biggest Victory Day parade in Moscow for years. The passing tanks, aircraft and intercontinental ballistic missiles were a reminder to the world – and Russian voters – of Putin’s determination to revive Moscow’s global power, 23 years after the Soviet collapse.