“Ukraine’s telecommunications system has come under attack, with equipment installed in Russian-controlled Crimea used to interfere with the mobile phones of members of parliament, the head of Ukraine’s SBU security service said on Tuesday,” Reuters reports.
“‘I confirm that an IP-telephonic attack is under way on mobile phones of members of Ukrainian parliament for the second day in row,’ Valentyn Nalivaichenko told a news briefing,” Reuters reports. “‘At the entrance to (telecoms firm) Ukrtelecom in Crimea, illegally and in violation of all commercial contracts, was installed equipment that blocks my phone as well as the phones of other deputies, regardless of their political affiliation,’ he said.”
Reuters reports, “Russian forces seized Crimea last week.”
Full article here.
“Vladimir Putin said he sees no immediate need to invade eastern Ukraine,” Ilya Arkhipov, Indira A.R. Lakshmanan and Stepan Kravchenko report for Bloomberg. “In his first public remarks since Ukraine said its Crimean peninsula had been taken over by Russian forces, President Putin said he reserved the right to use force to defend ethnic Russians while there’s ‘no such necessity’ at present.”
“‘Clearly Putin would like to lower some of the rhetoric,’ Paul Denoon, who oversees $29 billion of emerging-market debt at New York-based AllianceBernstein Holding LP, said today by phone. ‘But I don’t think he’s signaled a new direction in his intentions. We still think there’s a risk of escalation,'” Arkhipov, Lakshmanan and Kravchenko report. “Putin claims extremists orchestrated a coup to dislodge President Viktor Yanukovych and says Russian speakers in Ukraine’s east and south need protection. Ukraine’s acting President Oleksandr Turchynov has warned that a military invasion would be an act of war, saying Russians aren’t at risk.”
“The Russian leader struck a more conciliatory tone today. While saying Yanukovych remains Ukraine’s legitimate president, he ruled out any political future for the deposed leader and said Russia would engage the new administration,” Arkhipov, Lakshmanan and Kravchenko report. “Russia isn’t considering absorbing Crimea, Putin said today. Forty-one percent of its residents want to join Russia, compared with 33 percent and 24 percent in the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions, a February poll by the Kiev International Institute of Sociology showed. That figure is 12 percent nationwide, down from a fifth in recent years, according to the survey of 2,032 people, which had a 2.2 percent margin of error.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Fred Mertz” and “Lynn Weiler” for the heads up.]