Ukraine's interim leaders established a new National Guard on Tuesday and appealed to the United States and Britain for assistance against what they called Russian aggression in Crimea under a post-Cold War treaty, according to the Associated Press.
Blaming their ousted predecessors for the weakness of their own armed forces, acting ministers told parliament Ukraine had as few as 6,000 combat-ready infantry and that the air force was outnumbered nearly 100 to 1 by Moscow's superpower forces, the AP reported.
There was no let-up in the war of words, with the pro-Russian regional parliament in Crimea approving a declaration of independence that will take effect if people on the Black Sea peninsula vote to unite with Russia in a referendum on Sunday, according to the AP.
The national parliament in Kiev said it would dissolve the Crimean assembly if it did not cancel the plebiscite, the AP reported.
Viktor Yanukovich, whose overthrow last month after protests triggered the gravest crisis in Europe since the Cold War, insisted from his refuge in Russia that he was still Ukraine's legitimate president and commander of its armed forces, according to the AP.
Acting Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk, who will visit the White House and United Nations Security Council this week, said a 1994 treaty under which Ukraine agreed to give up its Soviet nuclear weapons obliged Russia to remove troops from Crimea and also obliged Western powers to defend Ukraine's sovereignty, the AP reported.
Failure to protect Ukraine would undermine efforts to persuade Iran or North Korea to forswear nuclear weapons as Kiev did 20 years ago, Yatseniuk said, according to the AP.
The terms of the Budapest Memorandum oblige Russia, Britain and the United States as guarantors to seek U.N. help for Ukraine if it faces attack by nuclear weapons, the AP reported.
