While its markets tumble, Russia sends more troops to Ukraine
15 March 2014 5:57 AM IST
Russia’s stock markets tumbled and the cost of insuring its debt soared on the last day of trading before pro-Moscow authorities in Crimea hold a vote to join Russia, a move all but certain to lead to U.S. and EU sanctions on Monday.
The Russian Foreign Ministry, responding to the death of at least one protester in Ukraine’s eastern city of Donetsk, repeated President Vladimir Putin’s declaration of the right to invade to protect Russian citizens and ‘compatriots’. ‘Russia is aware of its responsibility for the lives of compatriots and fellow citizens in Ukraine and reserves the right to take people under its protection,’ it said.
Ukrainian health authorities say one 22-year-old man was stabbed to death and at least 15 others were being treated in hospital after clashes in Donetsk, the mainly Russian-speaking home city of Ukraine’s ousted President Viktor Yanukovich. Organisers of the anti-Moscow demonstration said the dead man was from their group.
Moscow denies that its forces are intervening in Crimea, an assertion Washington ridicules as ‘Putin’s fiction’. Journalists have seen Russian forces operating openly in their thousands over the past two weeks, driving in armoured columns of vehicles with Russian licence plates and identifying themselves to besieged Ukrainian troops as members of Russia’s armed forces.
The Russian Foreign Ministry, responding to the death of at least one protester in Ukraine’s eastern city of Donetsk, repeated President Vladimir Putin’s declaration of the right to invade to protect Russian citizens and ‘compatriots’. ‘Russia is aware of its responsibility for the lives of compatriots and fellow citizens in Ukraine and reserves the right to take people under its protection,’ it said.
Ukrainian health authorities say one 22-year-old man was stabbed to death and at least 15 others were being treated in hospital after clashes in Donetsk, the mainly Russian-speaking home city of Ukraine’s ousted President Viktor Yanukovich. Organisers of the anti-Moscow demonstration said the dead man was from their group.
Moscow denies that its forces are intervening in Crimea, an assertion Washington ridicules as ‘Putin’s fiction’. Journalists have seen Russian forces operating openly in their thousands over the past two weeks, driving in armoured columns of vehicles with Russian licence plates and identifying themselves to besieged Ukrainian troops as members of Russia’s armed forces.
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