Russian Troops Storm Last Ukraine Ship as Crimea Militia Disbanded
Russian troops on Tuesday stormed the last naval vessel still flying the Ukrainian flag on the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, a regional Ukrainian defense official said.
The raid on the Cherkasy trawler occurred one day after Russian forces took control of the Kostyantyn Olshanskiy, which, like the Cherkasy, had been blocked by Russian ships in western Crimea's Donuzlav Lake, defense ministry spokesman Vladyslav Seleznyov said in a statement published on his Facebook account.
"The assault team is on board the Cherkasy. The crew has been barricaded inside the trawler. The assault is on," Seleznyov wrote.
The spokesman wrote in an earlier post that the trawler had been surrounded by several Mi-35 attack helicopters, two cutters and a tugboat.
Meanwhile, the self-proclaimed leader of the Crimean port city of Sevastopol later on Tuesday disbanded its pro-Russian militia and called on them to disarm according to Russian law.
Alexey Chaly, who has been in charge of the city for about a month, signed a decree to disband the "functions of people's militia units" which said they were "no longer useful".
"The revolution is over," Chaly said in a televised address directed at militia commanders.
"We are starting to live according to Russian laws with the relevant consequences for illegal actions."
Some of the commanders are opposed to the move, however, and plan to stage a protest against it on Wednesday.
"Chaly didn't even say thank you," one of them, Vladimir Tyunin, told Agence France Presse. "He is trying to rule this city single-handedly."
Chaly, a vehemently pro-Russian politician, was proclaimed Sevastopol's mayor at the end of February by people at a rally in support of calls for the city -- home to Russia's Black Sea fleet since the time of the tsars -- to join Russia.
At the time, the city's new authorities under Chaly had called on citizens to join a "self-defense" militia, which then took part in the seizure of Ukrainian military bases and ships together with Russian troops.
Ukraine's new Western-backed interim leaders ordered a full military withdrawal from Crimea on Monday following the peninsula's seizure and annexation by Russia in response to last month's fall in Kiev of a pro-Kremlin regime.
Russian troops and pro-Kremlin militia now control almost all of Ukraine's military bases in Crimea, having conducted three major assaults on key naval and air facilities in the past four days.
Source: Agence France Presse
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