Russia's parliament unanimously approved a request by President Vladimir Putin to authorize the intervention of Moscow's forces in Ukraine until "the normalization of the political situation" there.
The Federation Council vote came quickly after a formal appeal from Putin, but seemed to only rubber-stamp what has already occurred: Ukraine's defense minister said some 6,000 additional
Russian troops are already in the Crimea in what appeared to be a move aimed at maintaining Kremlin access to the strategic peninsula, where Russia's Black Sea fleet is based.
After the vote, Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted by Reuters as saying:
"[The] president [now] has received the full arsenal of means needed to resolve the situation, in terms of using [military] forces and in terms of taking decisions about [withdrawing] the head of our diplomatic mission in the United States."
Although the additional Russian force appeared, at least for now, to be limited to the Crimean peninsula, Putin's appeal, which called for authorizing force in the whole of the country, seemed to set up the possibility of a wider intervention.
The military moves, thus far involving mysterious balaclava-clad soldiers, follow the installation this week in Crimea of Sergiy Aksyono, a pro-Russian leader and the ouster a week ago of pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych.
Yanukovych fled to Russia and Aksyono asked Moscow for help in "stabilizing the region." The election of Aksyono, who claimed Saturday that he's coordinating directly with troops from Russia's Black Sea fleet and that those forces were guarding government buildings, has been deemed illegal by Kiev.
NPR's Emily Harris reports from the Ukrainian capital that the new government in Kiev has accused Russia of breaking an agreement on stationing troops in Crimea.
Russia's Interfax news agency quotes Ukraine's Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk as demanding that Russia "recall their forces, and return them to their stations."
"Russian partners, stop provoking civil and military resistance in Ukraine," Yatsenyuk said in an apparent reference to pro-Russian partisans in eastern Ukraine.
