Russia issues ‘surrender’ deadline to Ukrainians over Crimea or ‘face a storm’

Looks like Russia is about to take Crimea and no one is going to do anything about it:

FOX NEWS – Russia’s fleet has ordered Ukraine’s forces in the disputed Crimea Peninsula to surrender by 3 a.m. local time or “face a storm,” a Ukrainian defense ministry source says.

The source spoke to the Interfax news agency, according to Sky News.

The threat came hours after Ukraine’s new leaders called for Western nations to rally against Russia’s invasion of the peninsula, making a plea for economic and political support as Moscow continued to be defiant.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk insisted that Crimea remains Ukrainian territory despite the presence of thousands of Russian troops who have secured control over the region without suffering any casualties or firing a shot.

“Any attempt of Russia to grab Crimea will have no success at all. Give us some time,” he said at a news conference with British Foreign Secretary William Hague, who is visiting Kiev.

“For today, no military options [are] on the table,” he said, adding that what they urgently need is an economic and political support.

“Real support. Tangible support. And we do believe that our Western partners will provide this support,” he said.

Hague said on the BBC that Moscow would face “significant costs” for taking control of Crimea.

But Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Monday justified the use of Russian troops streaming into the neighboring Crimea region as a necessary protection for his country’s citizens living there.

The use of Russian troops is necessary “until the normalization of the political situation” in Ukraine, Lavrov said at an opening of a month-long session of the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva.

“We are talking here about protection of our citizens and compatriots, about protection of the most fundamental of the human rights — the right to live, and nothing more,” Lavrov said.


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