Russian Army on High Alert - Army Readiness Drills Started

Russian Army on High Alert - Army Readiness Drills Started
SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine — With cries of "Allahu akbar," Arabic for "God is great," thousands of protesters in the capital of Ukraine's Crimea region, a tinderbox of ethnic, religious and political divisions, added an Islamic voice on Wednesday to the tumultuous struggle for Ukraine that last weekend drove the president from power and that has pushed Russia and the West into a face-off reminiscent of the Cold War.
Eight hundred miles away, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia was ordering a surprise military exercise of ground and air forces on Ukraine's doorstep on Wednesday, adding to the tensions with Europe and the United States and underscoring his intention to keep the country in Moscow's orbit.
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Taken together, the two events illustrated the continuing challenges that the new government in Kiev faces in calming separatism at home and placating a frustrated Russian leader who sees Ukraine as a vital part of his strategy of rebuilding Russian influence along the lines not of the former Soviet Union but of the czars. While few analysts expected a Russian military intervention in Ukraine, most said Mr. Putin was likely to respond in some fashion to such a stinging geopolitical defeat.
The question was how, and on Wednesday he provided a first answer, when Russia's military put tens of thousands of troops in western Russia on alert at 2 p.m. for an exercise scheduled to last until March 3. The minister of defense, Sergei K. Shoigu, also announced unspecified measures to tighten security at the headquarters of Russia's Black Sea Fleet on the Crimean Peninsula.
Russian military vehicles have been far more visible in recent days on the streets of Crimea, residents say, suggesting that Moscow, while probably not gearing up for armed conflict, wants to make its presence felt in this potentially volatile region, where it has a number of naval and other military facilities dating from the Soviet Union.
In a sign of heightened tension, road blocks flying Russian flags appeared Wednesday on the main thoroughfares leading to Sevastopol, a Crimean city dominated economically and politically by the headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet. About 25 miles from the city center on the road from Simferopol, men in blue uniforms and others in green camouflage clothing stopped and inspected all vehicles. An armored personnel carrier, apparently Russian, was parked nearby.
General Shoigu announced the snap exercise during a meeting of Russia's general staff members, citing the need to test the Russian armed forces' readiness to respond to a "crisis situation."
Senior defense and government officials later said the exercise was not related to the events in Ukraine, which officials here have watched with growing alarm, but they also said there was no reason to postpone them either, and the geopolitical message was clear.

The orders came as thousands of ethnic Russians gathered outside the regional Parliament in Crimea's capital, Simferopol, to protest the political upheaval in Ukraine's capital, Kiev, that felled the government of President Viktor F. Yanukovych over the weekend and turned him into a fugitive. Crimea was Russian territory until the Soviet Union ceded it to the Soviet Socialist Republic of Ukraine in 1954, and Russians there have already pleaded for the Kremlin's intervention to protect the region from Ukraine's new leadership.
"Crimea is Russian!" some of the protesters screamed as brawls erupted with rival demonstrations by Crimea's ethnic Tatars supporting the new interim authorities. Bravo Putin. Glad to see this show of power. The Russians in Crimea and sailors of the Black Sea Fleet need to be defended.
Determined to block the local legislature from heeding calls from pro-Russia activists for more autonomy and even secession from Ukraine, 5,000 Crimean Tatars, the region's indigenous Turkic, Muslim population, traded taunts and occasional blows with protesters waving Russian flags.
After a peaceful start, the dueling rallies turned into a melee in the late afternoon. A couple of dozen Tatars broke into the legislative building, surging past riot police officers to confront anxious local legislators huddled inside."Where are the separatists?" screamed a furious Tatar activist, banging a wooden staff on the marble floor.