THE SITUATION IN CRIMEA

BNT special envoy, Mario Gavrilov, commented the situation in Crimea in a Skype interview for the morning programme “The Day Begins”.

For the recent week OSCE observers have made attempts to enter Crimea and have been turned away by armed men. On 10th March, Crimean authorities officially invited the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to send a mission to observe Sunday's referendum on joining Russia. From OSCE responded that Crimea was not a full-fledged state and therefore could not invite observers.

Mario Gavrilov described the situation in Simferopol as relatively calm. There is unconfirmed information from the Ukrainian Defense Ministry that a large number of military trucks, over 100, in two columns, are on the move, one of the columns heading towards Simferopol, the other towards the other part of the peninsular. According to the Ukrainian authorities these trucks are accompanied by armoured military equipment, but Gavailov again remarked the information was not confirmed.

As regards the incident from the recent days when armed men seized the BNT team’s bulletproof vests and helmets upon entering Crimea, Mario Gavrilov said that there were promises they would give them back to the Bulgarian team upon leaving the peninsular. He however considers it unlikely to happen and thinks they are already being used by the voluntary self-defense units, (as they describe themselves). He added that the TV team was not so much concerned the vest and helmets were taken during the check, but the attitude was humiliating and unnecessarily aggressive, because Gavrilov and the cameraman were professionals going to do their job and found the approach to them and to the technical equipment rather unpleasant.