“We know who they are and we see [what they are doing] as terrorism,” said Sergei Reshetnik, a local businessman furious over the Russians' arrival. “We just want to live quietly.”
The standoff in Novo-Ozerne between Russian and Ukrainian soldiers is a scene playing out across Crimea, days after Moscow effectively seized political power across the strategic Black Sea peninsula, establishing a pro-Russian regional government backed up by hundreds – perhaps thousands – of soldiers.
The seizure of power came after months of street demonstrations in the capital, Kyiv, which forced out Ukraine's president, the pro-Russian Viktor Yanukovych.