Putin gets permission to use Russian military in Ukraine

The Kremlin says Russian President Vladimir Putin has asked parliament for permission to use the country's military in Ukraine.

Putin says the move is needed to protect ethnic Russians and the personnel of a Russian military base in Ukraine's strategic region of Crimea. The request comes a day after President Obama warned Moscow that 'there will be costs' if it intervenes militarily in Ukraine.

The new prime minister of Ukraine's Crimea region claimed control of all military, police and security services in the region Saturday and urged Russia to intervene to keep the peace.

Sergei Aksenov, the head of the main pro-Russia party on the peninsula, said in a statement reported by local and Russian news agencies that he appealed to Russian President Vladimir Putin 'for assistance in guaranteeing peace and calmness on the territory of the autonomous republic of Crimea.'

Aksenov declared that the armed forces, the police, the national security service and border guards will answer only to his orders. He said any commanders who don't agree should leave their posts.

Russia's Foreign Ministry, meanwhile, said unidentified gunmen sent by Kiev had attempted overnight to seize the Crimea region's Interior Ministry offices and that people had been wounded in the 'treacherous provocation,' Reuters reported.

Ukrainian border guard vessels were put on combat alert in the Crimea region on Saturday and were leaving port to prevent the capture of military bases and ships, Interfax news agency quoted the border guard service as saying, according to Reuters.

Russian troops moved into Crimea Friday, U.S. officials told Fox News, prompting Ukraine to accuse Russia of an 'armed invasion.'

Ukraine's defense minister said on Saturday Russia had 'recently'' brought 6,000 additional personnel into Ukraine and that the Ukrainian military were on high alert in the Crimea region, Reuters reported.

Ukraine's Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk opened a cabinet meeting by calling on Russia not to provoke discord in Crimea.

'We call on the government and authorities of Russia to recall their forces, and to return them to their stations,' Yatsenyuk was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency. 'Russian partners, stop provoking civil and military resistance in Ukraine.'

At the White House, President Obama said the U.S. government is 'deeply concerned' by reports of Russian 'military movements' and warned any violation of Ukraine's sovereignty would be 'deeply destabilizing.'

'There will be costs' for any military intervention, he said, without specifying what those costs might be.

U.S. officials told Fox News they see 'evidence of air and maritime movement into and out of Crimea by Russian forces' although the Pentagon declined to officially 'characterize' the movement.

Earlier Friday, Agence France Press quoted a top Ukranian official as saying Russian aircraft carrying nearly 2,000 suspected troops have landed at a military air base near the regional capital of the restive Crimean peninsula.

'Thirteen Russian aircraft landed at the airport of Gvardeyskoye (near Simferopol) with 150 people in each one,' Sergiy Kunitsyn, the Ukrainian president's special representative in Crimea, told the local ATR television channel, according to AFP. He accused Russia of an 'armed invasion.'

The new developments prompted Ukraine to accuse Russia of a 'military invasion and occupation' -- a claim that brought an alarming new dimension to the crisis.

Russia kept silent on claims of military intervention, even as it maintained its hard-line stance on protecting ethnic Russians in Crimea, a peninsula of Ukraine on the northern coast of the Black Sea.

A spokesman for the Ukrainian border service said eight Russian transport planes have landed in Crimea with unknown cargo.

Serhiy Astakhov told that the Il-76 planes arrived unexpectedly Friday and were given permission to land, one after the other, at Gvardeiskoye air base, north of the regional capital, Simferopol.

Astakhov said the people in the planes refused to identify themselves and waved off customs officials, saying they didn't require their services.

Earlier in the day, Russian armored vehicles rumbled across Crimea and reports surfaced of troops being deployed at airports and a coast guard base - signs of a more heavy-handed approach to the crisis from Moscow.

At the United Nations, the Ukrainian ambassador, Yuriy Sergeyev, said Friday that 10 Russian transport aircraft and 11 attack helicopters had arrived in Crimea illegally, and that Russian troops had taken control of two airports in Crimea.

He described the gunmen posted outside the two airports as Russian armed forces as well as 'unspecified' units.

Meanwhile, flights remained halted from Simferopol's airport. Dozens of armed men in military uniforms without markings patrolled the area. They didn't stop or search people leaving or entering the airport, and refused to talk to journalists.

One man who identified himself only as Vladimir said the men were part of the Crimean People's Brigade, which he described as a self-defense unit ensuring that no 'radicals and fascists' arrive from other parts of Ukraine. There was no way to verify his account.

and Reuters contributed to this report.



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