SEVASTOPOL, March 03, /ITAR-TASS/. Hundreds of activists and people’s volunteers as well as ordinary people who have gathered outside the Ukrainian Navy headquarters in Sevastopol, have said they are not going to storm its building but will block its work by using correct methods. Their aim is to force everybody who is inside to leave the building.
“Our task is quite simple. We want the people who are inside to leave the building and not to interfere with the work of the newly-formed Crimean naval force,” Ivan Komelov, a member of the Sevastopol City Council, told Itar-Tass on Monday, adding that the work of the new military unit set up on Sunday was being sabotaged.
Volunteers, members of self-defence units and ordinary people who set up a picket outside the Ukrainian Navy headquarters, have pledged not to disperse so long as the Ukrainian Navy servicemen do not leave the building.
“They are going to get out of their sooner or later, and we will not let them back. The man who has introduced himself as a newly-appointed commander of the Ukrainian Navy (Sergei Gaiduk) should leave the city’s territory because the people of Sevastopol will never recognize the power imposed by him,” Komelov said, adding the protesters would continue blocking the headquarters without causing damage to the building and avoiding provocations.
Komelov told Itar-Tass that the people who had gathered outside were not going to storm the building or provoke the people inside to any aggressive actions.
Hundreds of people chanting “Sevastopol!” “Russia!” have gathered outside the Ukrainian Navy’s headquarters. They are urging the commander of Ukrainian Navy to leave the building.
The situation is calm, but no one is planning to disperse. Members of the self-defence units continue to be on guard outside the headquarters’ checkpoints.
The people are holding Russian tricolors and the Russian Navy St. Andrew’s flags in their hands.