Risk of Russia war growing

Ukraine's Western-backed leaders voiced fears yesterday of an imminent Russian invasion of the eastern industrial heartland following the fall of their last airbase in Crimea to defiant Kremlin troops.
Saturday's takeover involving armoured personnel carriers and stun grenades provided the most spectacular show of force since the Kremlin sent troops into the heavily Russified peninsula three weeks ago before sealing its annexation Friday.
Alarm about a push outside Crimea by Moscow's overwhelming forces -- now conducting drills at Ukraine's eastern gate -- were fanned further yesterday by a call by its self-declared premier for Russians across the ex-Soviet country to rise up against Kiev's rule.
Meanwhile, Nato's military commander in Europe has issued a warning about the build-up of Russian forces on Ukraine's border.
Supreme Allied Commander Europe Gen Philip Breedlove yesterday said Nato was in particular concerned about the threat to Moldova's Trans-Dniester region.
He said: "The [Russian] force that is at the Ukrainian border now to the east is very, very sizeable and very, very ready.”
However, Russia denied the allegations and said its forces complied with international agreements.
Trans-Dniester is a narrow strip of land between the Dniester river and the Ukrainian border and it proclaimed independence from Moldova in 1990. The international community has not recognised its self-declared statehood. As Crimea was annexed, the Trans-Dniester Supreme Soviet sent a request asking to join the Russian Federation.
"The aim of Putin is not Crimea but all of Ukraine... His troops massed at the border are ready to attack at any moment," Ukraine's National Security and Defence Council chief Andriy Parubiy told a mass unity rally in Kiev.
One of the biggest tests facing the besieged interim leaders in Kiev now comes from restless Russians who have been stirring up violent protests and demanding their own secession referendums in the southeastern swaths of Ukraine.
The region's mistrust of the new team's European values lies from cultural and trade ties with Russia that in many cases are centuries old -- a fact seized upon by Crimea's Russia-backed prime minister Sergei Aksyonov yesterday.
He said in an impassioned address he posted on Facebook and read out on local TV that Crimea began facing a "sad fate" the moment three months of deadly protests involving a mix of nationalist and pro-Western forces toppled the pro-Kremlin regime in Kiev."But we resisted and won! Our motherland -- Russia -- extended her hand of help," said Aksyonov.
Aksyonov said he was "deeply convinced" that the future of southeastern Ukraine "rested in a close union with the Russian Federation -- a political, economic and cultural union".