Gunmen, Russian jet patrols raise tensions in Ukraine

SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine -- Masked gunmen stormed the parliament in Ukraine's strategic Crimea region yesterday as Russian fighter jets scrambled to patrol borders, while the newly formed national government pledged to prevent a national breakup with strong backing from the West.

The tensions raised concerns of a potentially dangerous confrontation reminiscent of Cold War brinkmanship.

Moscow granted shelter to Ukraine's fugitive president, Viktor Yanukovych, state media said. He was said to be holed up in a luxury government retreat and to be planning a news conference today near the Ukrainian border.

As gunmen wearing unmarked camouflage uniforms erected a sign reading "Crimea is Russia" in the provincial capital, Ukraine's interim prime minister declared the Black Sea territory "has been and will be a part of Ukraine." The escalating conflict sent Ukraine's finances plummeting further, prompting Western leaders to prepare an emergency financial package.

Yanukovych, whose abandonment of closer ties to Europe in favor of a bailout loan from Russia set off three months of protests, fled by helicopter last week. The humiliating exit was a blow to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Russian leader has long dreamed of pulling Ukraine -- a country of 46 million people considered the cradle of Russian civilization -- closer into Moscow's orbit.

For Ukraine's neighbors, the specter of Ukraine breaking up evoked memories of centuries of bloody conflict.

"Regional conflicts begin this way," said Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, calling the confrontation "a very dangerous game."

Russia has pledged to respect Ukraine's territorial integrity. But the dispatch of Russian fighter jets to patrol borders and drills by some 150,000 troops -- almost the entirety of the force in western Russia -- signaled determination not to lose Ukraine to the West.

The country's population is divided in loyalties between Russia and the West. Crimea, which was seized by Russian forces in the 18th century under Catherine the Great, was once the crown jewel in the Russian and Soviet empires.

It only became part of Ukraine in 1954 when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev transferred jurisdiction from Russia -- a move that was a mere formality until the 1991 Soviet collapse made it part of an independent Ukraine.

In Kiev, the new prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, 39, said Ukraine's future lies in the European Union, but with friendly relations with Russia.

Yatsenyuk, named in a boisterous parliamentary session, served as economy minister, foreign minister and parliamentary speaker before Yanukovych took office in 2010 and is widely viewed as a technocratic reformer who enjoys U.S. support.