Ukraine's ousted president Viktor Yanukovych made his first public appearance since fleeing Kiev on Friday, pledging to fight the "nationalist" forces who drove him out of the country.
"Nobody ousted me. I had to leave Ukraine under the threat to my life and the life of my family," he told a news conference in neighboring Russia.
He said Ukraine's interim rulers "represent the absolute minority of the population of Ukraine."
Yanukovych’s public appearance, in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don, came after Ukraine's General Prosecutor Office called on Russia to extradite him to face charges of corruption and for his role in the death of protesters in Kiev.
Earlier Friday, Ukraine’s interior minister accused Moscow's military of blockading an airport near a Russian naval base in the country as fears grew that a separatist movement in the autonomous Ukrainian region of Crimea could trigger a deadly international conflict.