Key Ukraine airbase overrun as Russian troops march deeper into Crimea

[unhappycamper]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/03/22/key-ukraine-airbase-overrun-as-russian-troops-march-deeper-into-crimea/



Key Ukraine airbase overrun as Russian troops march deeper into Crimea
By Agence France-Presse
Saturday, March 22, 2014 16:41 EDT

Armoured vehicles backed by troops pointing guns at unarmed soldiers stormed a Ukrainian airbase in Crimea on Saturday as Russia’s defiant march across the rebel peninsula rolled on despite sanctions and growing global isolation.

The show of Russia’s unbridled might came as the chill in East-West relations intensified with a charge by Germany — a nation whose friendship Russian President Vladimir Putin had nurtured — of a Kremlin attempt to “splinter” Europe along Cold War-era lines.

Europe’s most explosive security crisis in decades will now dominate a nuclear security summit that kicks off in The Hague on Monday and will include what may prove the most difficult meeting to date between US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

The diplomats’ encounter will come with Russia facing the loss of its coveted seat among the G8 group of leading nations and Putin’s inner circle reeling from biting sanctions Washington unleashed for their use of force in response to last month’s fall of a pro-Kremlin regime in Kiev.