[Al Ahram] Ukraine's parliament sacked the crisis-hit country's besieged defence minister Tuesday after his forces began a humiliating withdrawal from Crimea without firing a shot against Russian forces who claimed the Black Sea peninsula. Crimea's effective loss -- though recognised by no Western power -- has dealt a heavy psychological blow to many Ukrainians who have already spent the past years mired in corruption and economic malaise.
Ukraine's ground commanders in Crimea had complained bitterly of confusion among the top brass in Kiev since Russian President Vladimir Putin
...Second and fourth President of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead...'s decision on March 1 to seek the right to use force against his neighbour in response to last month's fall in Kiev of a pro-Kremlin regime.
Some 228 deputies in the 450-seat Verkhovna Rada parliament supported Igor Tenyukh's dismissal after the acting defence minister tendered his resignation in an emotional address broadcast live to the nation of 46 million people.
"It seems that the actions of the interim defence minister in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea... have displeased some," said Tenyukh.
"I have never clung on to my job, and I don't intend to do so now," he said. "I have honour."
Tenyukh also admitted that 14,500 of Ukraine's 18,800 soldiers in Crimea had informed their superiors they would prefer to remain on the peninsula as part of the Russian military -- a massive majority that underscores the demoralised state of Kiev's force.
Deputies then voted to appoint Lieutenant General Mykhailo Koval as the new acting defence minister after his name was submitted for approval by interim President Oleksandr Turchynov.
Koval had made the news earlier this month when he was briefly kidnapped by pro-Kremlin militias near his military base in the Crimean port of Yalta.
Tuesday's session gave politicians a chance to voice growing frustrations with how the Western-backed leaders have handled their jobs since coming to power on the back of three months of deadly protests whose ultimate aim was to eliminate the corruption and Kremlin dependence that have weighed over Ukraine throughout its post-Soviet history.
"We gave up Crimea to the Russians thanks to our unprofessionalism," independent politician Igor Palytsya fumed. "We gave up Crimea thanks to our indecision."