robin forester-walker is there.ates us on the changes of allegiance that we are seeing and have had had confirmed. >> reporter: sure, jane, we understand that there is at least one other base facing this same kind of pressure with the russian military encircle. around it. and now what will have probably come as a painful blow to the fledgling interim government in kiev, because just in the last past hour or so, we are hearing that the navel commander that was appointed yesterday, only yesterday by the interim president, has now admitted allegiance, sworn allegiance to the crimean people in the presence of sergei who is the new prime minister. he appointed prime minister here in the crimean -- in the crimean region. so what it appears to be is a major defection given that he was only appointed in the past 24 hours or so. and at the same time, the new prime minister here, has stated that he is now the military commander-in-chief, and he has demanded that all military units not obey the kiev defense ministry, not to us

robin forester walker, al jazeera, crimea. >> the london respondent for the crimean newspaper. thanks for coming in. how much dispute has occurred before this current crisis escalated? >> i would say that crimea was an interesting example of a former soviet union territory where there were attentions but there was no conflict. because if you see unlike some russian regions for example caucasus where we had wars, conflicts and very series problems with terrorism, and interethnic conflicts, in crimea until now there was no serious confrontation between different ethnic or religious groups. i think that's why, one of the reasons why tartar, crimean tartar populations were quite loyal to the ukrainian government in crimea because they were in a safe place, they were homing for their life to become better -- they were hoping for their life to become better and there were real opportunities. of course now when we have soldiers on that territory. >> given that and given that the crisis is escalating, what the rest of the world is wondering might happen, this is no longer a safe place,