Ukraine PM: We Won't Budge '1 Centimeter'

Yatsenyuk will head to Washington this week for Crimea talks
By Polly Davis Doig,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 9, 2014 9:13 AM CDT
Ukraine PM: We Won't Budge '1 Centimeter'
Ukrainian lawmaker and chairman of the Ukrainian party Udar (Punch), former WBC heavyweight boxing champion Vitali Klitschko, right, speaks with locals in Donetsk, Ukraine, Sunday, March 9, 2014.   (Sergei Chuzavkov)

Ukraine PM Arseniy Yatsenyuk will head to Washington this week for talks on the Crimea situation, Fox News reports. Yatsenyuk announced his US visit, which he said will seek a "resolution of the situation in Ukraine," after a government meeting. Meanwhile, Yatsenyuk was talking tough today, adds the AP, vowing at a Kiev celebration of the country's great nationalist poet that "This is our land. Our fathers and grandfathers have spilled their blood for this land. And we won't budge a single centimeter from Ukrainian land. Let Russia and its president know this."

Crimea was throwing a party of its own, with 4,000-plus people gathering in the capital of Simferopol to throw their support behind unification with Russia. "Russians are our brothers," Crimea's parliament speaker told the crowd. "We are going back home to the motherland." His speech was greeted with cries of "Russia! Russia!," notes the AP. A smaller gathering of 500 or so turned out to voice opposition to the referendum. "We will not allow a foreign boot that wants to stand on the heads of our children," said one protester. (More Ukraine stories.)

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