Parties and gunfire in separatist Crimea

SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine – Gunfire rang out in Crimea’s main city of Simferopol on Tuesday, even as hundreds partied on the central Lenin Square to celebrate an agreement to incorporate their Black Sea peninsula into Russia.

Two people were reported killed and two injured in a gun battle at a Ukrainian military building, which shattered a tense month-long face off between Russian forces and pro-Moscow militias.

An Agence France-Presse photographer on the scene saw at least 10 gunmen enter the building — a nautical mapping institute — in the city’s northeast and heard a burst of automatic gunfire coming from inside.

The area was sealed off by police and pro-Moscow militias known locally as “self-defense forces”.

“There are some operations going on here,” Anatoliy Tikhonov, an activist outside the base who was dressed in a military uniform, told the Agence France-Presse.

“Gunshots were heard. That’s why people came here. Everyone is worried and wants to know what is happening,” Tikhonov said.

Police spokesperson Olga Kondrashova was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying the gunfire “came from the same place”, both against the Ukrainian military and against the pro-Moscow forces.

She said one Ukrainian soldier and one pro-Russia militiaman were shot dead and two more people were injured.

Ukraine’s defense ministry said one of its soldiers died of a neck wound. All the soldiers on the base have had their identity papers taken away, it said.

After the shooting, the ministry said Ukrainian soldiers would now be allowed to fire in self-defense after previous orders not to use their weapons.

In another part of the tense city, hundreds of Crimean Tatars gathered at a Muslim cemetery to bury 38-year-old Reshat Ametov, who was reportedly abducted and tortured for protesting against the drive for Crimea to join the Russian Federation.

“He was brutally beaten,” Ametov’s aunt Zera Kadyrova said at the funeral.

“They said there would be an investigation, but we don’t know how true that is,” she said.

The Crimean council of muftis said the body “had evidence of violence and torture.”

The Tatar minority in Crimea has protested against Russia’s intervention on the peninsula and mostly stayed away from Sunday’s referendum, in which the Russian-speaking majority overwhelmingly voted in favor of breaking away from Ukraine.

‘Together Forever’

In the center of town meanwhile there were celebrations after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s announcement that Crimea would join Russia.

The speech that was closely followed across the city including at a fruit and vegetable market where customers and stallholders were seen crowding around radios to follow the address in Moscow.

Convoys of cars waving Russian flags honked their horns and the Russian national anthem could be heard around the city, where the old signs from the parliament building were taken down to be replaced by the new insignia for the “Republic of Crimea”.

“We have been waiting for this moment since Crimea was given away in 1954,” said 70-year-old Anatoliy Volkovoi – a reference to the Soviet-era “gift” of Crimea from Soviet Russia to Soviet Ukraine.

The pensioner compared his emotions to the scenes of mourning when Joseph Stalin died in 1953.

Hundreds gathered in Lenin Square, waving Russian flags and watching a Moscow concert by Putin’s favourite singer Lubeh on giant screens.

“Crimea and Russia, Together Forever” as the singer crooned: “Russia, my Russia, from Crimea to the Yenisey” – a Siberian river. – Rappler.com