http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2575419/Ousted-Ukrainian-president-Yanukovych-seriously-ill-hospital-suffering-heart-attack-claim-Russian-press.html
Daily Mail
7Mar2014
Ousted Ukrainian president Yanukovych is 'gravely ill' after heart attack as plane carrying country's new leader is boarded by SWAT team after terrorist attack alert
- Russian newspaper claims Viktor Yanukovych is in 'grave' condition
- Vladimir Putin dismissed report earlier this week that Yanukovych had died
- SWAT teams boarded plane carrying Ukraine's new PM following 'terrorist threat'
- Speaker of Russia's upper house of parliament today said there will be no war between Russia and the Ukraine
- She also said Crimea's parliament has the right to hold a referendum on the region's future status
- French foreign minister has said second round of sanctions against Russia could follow if first do not succeed
By Will Stewart In Moscow and James Rush
[ GRAPHICS ]
Deposed president of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych is in a Moscow hospital after suffering a suspected heart attack, it was reported in Russia today.
His condition was said to be 'grave', Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper, known as MK, has claimed, citing unofficial sources.
Austrian authorities meanwhile have said SWAT teams boarded a plane carrying Ukraine's new Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk after receiving a threat that a terrorist attack was planned.
Austria's Interior Ministry has said today the team boarded the plane following its scheduled landing in Vienna on Thursday night after it received a security warning from German flight controllers. Nothing out of the ordinary was found.
Mr Yatsenyuk, who was making his way home after addressing European Union leaders in Brussels, then took his scheduled connection to Kiev.
German flight control spokeswoman Kristina Kelek said the initial warning came from Belgian police and was then relayed by her office to Austrian authorities because the plane was already almost out of German airspace when it was received.
She says it was a vague warning that 'there was possibly a terrorist attack planned'.
Vladimir Putin dismissed a report earlier this week that Yanukovych had died from a heart attack in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don.
On Tuesday, the Kremlin leader said his former ally was 'alive and healthy', and that he had met him several days earlier.
However, Yanukovych has not been seen in public since giving a press conference in Russia one week ago.
Putin also claimed the former leader would have been killed if not for his rescue in Sevastopol by Russian forces.
Today the newspaper said: 'According to an MK source, Yanukovych may have had a heart attack. His condition is assessed as grave.'
The name of the Moscow hospital was not given.
'So far there has been no official confirmation,' stated the newspaper.
Yanukovych is the subject of a formal request by the authorities in Kiev for extradition to face an investigation for ordering his security forces to shoot unarmed protesters in Kiev last month. He denies the allegations.
Russia believes Yanukovych remains the legal president of Ukraine. Putin agreed to give him sanctuary after he was toppled.
'The legitimate president, purely legally, is undoubtedly Yanukovych,' said Putin on Tuesday.
“I think he has no political future - I told him that. As for playing a role in his fate, we did that purely from humanitarian reasons.'
Russia now has 30,000 troops in Ukraine's Crimea region, Ukrainian border guards said on Friday, nearly twice the previous figure given by the government in Kiev.
Serhiy Astakhov, aide to the head of border guards service, told Reuters the figure was an estimate and included both troops that had arrived since last week and Russia's Black Sea Fleet, permanently based in the Crimean port of Sevastopol.
Russia, whose forces occupied the isolated peninsula last week, says the only troops it has there are those based in Sevastopol. The Russian troops that have occupied positions across Crimea wear no insignia on their uniforms but drive vehicles with Russian military plates.
Ukraine says thousands of extra troops have arrived and have fanned out across the occupied peninsula in violation of the treaty governing the base. Earlier this week Ukraine said there were a total of 16,000 Russian troops in Crimea.
Leading Ukranian politician Yulia Tymoshenko has today said there was a danger of guerrilla war in Crimea should it be incorporated into Russia and appealed to Germany and others for immediate economic sanctions against Moscow.
She said a Russian takeover of the Crimean peninsula would create long-term dangers for the whole region.
Speaking to Reuters after a meeting with German chancellor Angela Merkel, Tymoshenko said international measures against Russia had so far been ineffective and called for immediate action to prevent a 'flashpoint'.
A U.S. Navy destoyer, which is heading to the Black Sea for what the military on Thursday described as a 'routine' deployment that was scheduled well before the crisis in Ukraine, was today passing through Istanbul's Bosporus straits.
The Navy destroyer USS Truxtun is participating in exercises with Romania and Bulgaria and is expected to be in the Black Sea for several days.
Demonstrators who have remained encamped in Kiev's central Independence Square to defend the revolution that ousted Yanukovich said they did not believe Crimea would be allowed to secede.
[ . . . ]
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UKRAINE'S NEW LEADERSHIP TURNS TO THE OLIGARCHS FOR HELP
In a surprising move, Ukraine's new leadership has reached out to oligarchs for help - appointing them as governors in eastern regions where loyalties to Moscow are strong.
With their wealth, influence and self-interest in preventing further conflict, the oligarchs could be the key to calming tensions and maintaining Ukraine's control in areas where pro-Russian activists have stoked separatist tensions.
But the decision to appoint the country's richest men as regional administrators has its risks. Some believe the oligarchs, who have a history of manipulating governments, may become too entrenched in their new jobs and could use their posts for personal gain.
The unexpected move drew instant ire from Russian President Vladimir Putin, who called one of the oligarchs, Ukraine's third-richest man, Ihor Kolomoisky, a 'swindler'.
'They name oligarchs, billionaires as governors of eastern regions,' Putin said during a news conference earlier this week. 'Naturally, people don't accept that.'
Under Ukrainian law, governors are appointed by the country's president instead of being elected.
After President Viktor Yanukovych fled for Russia last month in the wake of mass protests against his government and deadly clashes with police, acting President Oleksandr Turchynov fired Yanukovych's appointees and replaced them with his own.
Kolomoisky, a metals, banking and media tycoon, was named governor of his native region of Dnipropetrovsk, while Serhiy Taruta, the country's 16th-richest man, according to Forbes Ukraine, was named governor of his home Donetsk region. Both oligarchs are seen as pro-European and Kolomoisky's media have provided sympathetic coverage of the pro-Western protests.
The move comes after other top oligarchs, including the country's richest man and a key backer of Yanukvoych's Party of Regions, Rinat Akhmetov, called for preserving Ukraine's unity.
Experts said the appointments demonstrated that despite its strong ties to Russia, industry leaders in eastern Ukraine who provide jobs to tens of thousands of Ukrainians are against a split-up.
'The oligarchs taking on this responsibility is a demonstration of their commitment to an independent, sovereign and territorially integrated Ukraine,' former U.S. Ambassador John Edward Herbst told The Associated Press.
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