2014/03/02/Tug of War Over Ukraine Intensifies

title/short::Tug of War Over Ukraine Intensifies “This is the red alert — this is not a threat, this is actually a declaration of war to my country,” Ukraine’s prime minister, Arseniy P. Yatsenyuk, told reporters in English, a day after Russia’s Parliament approved the deployment of troops to any part of Ukraine where Moscow deems Russians to be in danger. He warned that Ukraine was on the “brink of disaster” and asked the international community to stand by his government in Kiev.
 * when: when posted::2014/03/02
 * author: author::Steven Erlanger
 * source: site::New York Times
 * topics: topic:Ukraine topic:Russia topic:Vladimir Putin
 * keywords
 * link: URL::http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/03/world/europe/ukraine.html
 * title: title::Tug of War Over Ukraine Intensifies
 * summary: Sunday was a day of messages and mopping up, with Ukrainian and Western leaders trying to dissuade President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia from overplaying his hand and ordering an invasion of eastern Ukraine, even as Russian forces and their sympathizers in Crimea worked to disarm or neutralize any Ukrainian resistance there.

What began in Ukraine three months ago as a protest against the government of President Viktor F. Yanukovych has now turned into a big-power confrontation reminiscent of the Cold War and a significant challenge to international agreements on the sanctity of the borders of post-Soviet nations.

The Russian incursion also poses a new crisis for the Obama administration, which embraced the new government in Kiev but now finds itself confronted with an ever more thinly veiled invasion of Ukraine.