Russia Temporarily Lifts Siege of Ukraine's Crimea Bases, Putin to Respect 'Choice' of Peninsula People

Ukraine's defense minister said Sunday that Russia had agreed to temporarily lift its blockade of Ukraine's military bases in Crimea in order to ease tensions surrounding the peninsula's secession referendum, as Moscow said it would respect the “choice” of the flashpoint region's residents.

"Agreements have already been reached between our commanders... on there being no attempts to blockade our military installations until March 21," Interfax quoted Defense Minister Igor Tenyukh as saying.

"We have reached this truce, and I think it will remain in place until March 21."

Tenyukh said that Ukraine's troops in Crimea remained on full combat alert but that the situation on the ground was calm.

"For now, the situation concerning our military installations... has normalized," the defense minister said.

Ukrainian officials on Friday accused Russian forces of moving outside Crimea for the first time by seizing a town on a spit off the northeast coast of the peninsula called Strilkove.

Tenyukh did not mention the episode in his reported remarks.

Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday told German Chancellor Angela Merkel his country would respect the choice of the people of Crimea and expressed concern over tensions in Ukraine's Russian-speaking regions of south and southeast.

"It has been stressed that Russia will respect the choice of Crimea's residents," the Kremlin said in a statement following phone talks between Putin and Merkel.

"The Russian president once again expressed concern over tensions in Ukraine's south and southeast being inflamed by radical groups with the connivance of Kiev's authorities," the Kremlin said in a statement following the talks.

Putin also "stressed that Russia will respect the choice of Crimea's residents" in Sunday's historic referendum on breaking away from Ukraine to join Russia, the statement said.

The Russian leader reiterated Moscow's position that the referendum was in line with international law, it said.

Three people died in recent clashes in the Russian-speaking eastern Ukrainian cities of Donetsk and Kharkiv.

Russia has said it was considering "many requests" to protect Ukrainians, raising fears that Russia could move its troops beyond Crimea.

Putin and Merkel also discussed the possibility of sending a "large-scale mission" from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to monitor the situation in Ukraine, the Kremlin said.

Separately, Putin's foreign minister Sergei Lavrov called on U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to press the Kiev authorities to take steps to protect Ukraine's Russian speakers.

"John Kerry assured (Lavrov) that Washington is already conducting all the necessary work and expects that it will soon bring positive results," the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement.

The two men also agreed to continue to look for ways to defuse the crisis in Ukraine through "the launch as soon as possible of a constitutional reform with the support of the international community."

Merkel told Russian President Vladimir Putin Sunday that she backed a bigger role in Ukraine for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), her spokesman said.

In the latest in a series of often heated telephone talks between the two leaders since Russia seized Ukraine's Crimean peninsula earlier this month, Merkel's office indicated that she and Putin had found a point of agreement.

"The chancellor suggested quickly expanding the OSCE's presence in Ukraine and sending a greater number of observers to the crisis zones, in particular eastern Ukraine," her spokesman Steffen Seibert said in a statement summarizing the conversation.

"The Russian president had a positive assessment of this initiative and agreed to assign Foreign Minister (Sergei) Lavrov accordingly."

Merkel said she hoped for a decision approving such measures by the Vienna-based OSCE on Monday.

Seibert said Merkel and Putin had spoken "about the tense security situation in Ukraine despite their differing takes on the referendum in Crimea and the issue of territorial integrity and sovereignty."

"The chancellor condemned yesterday's incident in the area of Kherson on the Ukrainian mainland in which Russian troops occupied a natural gas pumping station," Seibert said.

The Ukrainian foreign ministry said 80 Russian military personnel had seized a village on the Arabat Spit called Strilkove with the support of four military helicopters and three armored personnel carriers.

The peninsula's pro-Kremlin administration later said Strilkove had been "taken under the control of self-defense forces of Crimea". They were to protect the pumping station that had allegedly come under attack from a group of Ukrainian nationalists.

Seibert said Merkel had underlined the "urgency and necessity" of direct talks between the Russian and Ukrainian governments "to resolve the outstanding problems."

Also on Sunday, Ukraine's Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk called for foreign observers from the OSCE to be sent "urgently" to the east and south of the country.

In a statement, the Kiev government said it had "asked that the OSCE urgently send a monitoring mission to Ukraine."

"Their mandate should include the east and south of Ukraine, including Crimea," Yatsenyuk added in the statement, as the Black Sea peninsula voted in a referendum widely expected to favor its split from Ukraine and attachment to Russia.

"I hope this decision can be voted at an extraordinary session of the OSCE," Yatsenyuk added.

More than 50 observers from the Vienna-based Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) already attempted to enter Crimea two weeks ago in a bid to defuse tensions in the autonomous region, but were barred entry on repeated occasion at border checkpoints.

Meanwhile, pro-Russian groups stormed the local headquarters of Ukraine's SBU security services and the prosecutor's office in the flashpoint eastern city of Donetsk on Sunday, an Agence France Presse reporter witnessed.

Protesters, demanding the release of their self-appointed "governor," attacked the two buildings without meeting much opposition from police, the reporter said.