In Kiev, Ukrainian prosecutors opened a new investigation against Yanukovych on charges of making calls to overthrow the country's constitutional order. He already is being investigated in the deaths of dozens of Ukrainian protesters who were shot dead in Kiev in February.
Yanukovych's old rival, former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, attacked his statement, accusing him of being “a tool aimed at destroying the independence of Ukraine”.
Tymoshenko is running in Ukraine's next presidential election, which Russia has sought to delay.
The new Ukrainian government and the West, meanwhile, have voiced concerns about a possible invasion as Russia builds up its troops near the border with Ukraine. Putin has warned that Russia could use “all means” to protect people in Ukraine from radical nationalists.
That was echoed by Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, who said Putin made clear in a March 18 statement that there was not going to be any new Russian move into Ukraine.
While Putin has said Russia doesn't want a division of Ukraine, he also sought to cast it as an artificial state created by the Communists that includes historic Russian regions controversial statements that raise doubts about the Kremlin's intentions.
To tamp down those fears, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Friday that Moscow allowed observation flights over the border by Ukrainian, U.S., German and other Western officials. It said if any major troop concentrations had been spotted, the West wouldn't have been shy to speak about it.
Russia also kept pushing its long-held contention that ethnic minorities in Ukraine are living in fear of the new interim authorities. The Foreign Ministry said not just ethnic Russians, but ethnic Germans, Hungarians and Czechs in Ukraine also are feeling in peril.
“They are unsettled by the unstable political situation in the country and are seriously afraid for their lives,” the statement said, without citing specific incidents.
