MOSCOW, March 3 (RIA Novosti) – The speaker of Russia’s lower house of parliament suggested Monday that there was no need for his country to use military force in neighboring Ukraine, in an apparent effort to temper anxieties as evidence emerges of substantial Russian troop deployments across Crimea.
Duma speaker Sergei Naryshkin told state-run Rossiya 24 television news channel that approval for military action granted over the weekend by the upper house was contingent on how events develop on the ground.
“The decision taken by the Federation Council just gives us a right, which we will use in case of necessity. At the moment, there is no need for this,” he said. “Like my colleagues, I don’t want to pronounce the word ‘war.’”
Naryshkin warned Ukraine's interim president Oleksandr Turchynov on Saturday that Moscow would respond militarily if Kiev used force against peaceful civilians in the Crimea Peninsula, which hosts bases used by Russia's Black Sea Fleet.
The speaker condemned a statement made over the weekend by US Secretary of State John Kerry, who warned that Russia could be expelled from the G8 and face economic sanctions unless President Vladimir Putin halted his “aggression” in Ukraine.
“These are short-sighted calls, they lead to the escalation of the crisis, not to its solution,” Naryshkin said.
