SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine -- Russian armed forces effectively seized control of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula on Saturday, as President Vladimir V. Putin had the Russian Parliament grant him broad authority to use military force in Ukraine in response to deepening instability there.Russian troops stripped of identifying insignia and military vehicles bearing the black license plates of Russia's Black Sea force swarmed the major thoroughfares of Crimea and occupied major government buildings, closing the main airport and solidifying what had been a covert effort to control the largely pro-Russian region of Ukraine.
In Moscow, Mr. Putin convened the upper house of Parliament to forcefully denounce President Obama and obtain authorization to protect Russian citizens and soldiers stationed in Crimea as well as other parts of Ukraine.
Both actions, military and parliamentary, were a direct rebuff to Mr. Obama, who on Friday pointedly warned Russia to respect Ukraine's territorial sovereignty.
| Worked well, didn't it... |
Large pro-Russia crowds rallied in the eastern Ukrainian cities of Donetsk and Kharkiv, where there were reports of violence. In Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, fears grew within the new provisional government that separatist upheaval would fracture the country just days after a three- month period of civil unrest had ended with the ouster of President Viktor F. Yanukovych, a Kremlin ally who fled to Russia.
On Saturday morning, the pro-Russia prime minister of Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov, declared that he had sole control over the military and the police in the disputed peninsula and appealed to Mr. Putin for Russian help in safeguarding the region. He also said a public referendum on independence would be held on March 30.
The Kremlin has denied any attempt to seize Crimea, where it maintains important military installations, including the headquarters of its Black Sea Fleet. But the Kremlin quickly issued a statement saying that Mr. Aksyonov's plea "would not be ignored," and within hours the Federation Council, the upper chamber of Parliament, had authorized military action.
The authorization, while citing Crimea, covered the use of Russian forces in the entire "territory of Ukraine," and its time frame extended indefinitely "until the normalization of the sociopolitical environment in the country." Parliament also asked Mr. Putin to withdraw Russia's ambassador to the United States.
Officials in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, reacted angrily and reiterated their demands that Russia pull back its forces, and confine them to the military installations in Crimea that Russia has long leased from Ukraine.
"The presence of Russian troops in Crimea now is unacceptable," said acting Prime Minister Arseniy P. Yatsenyuk. Decrying the Russian deployment as a "provocation," he added, "We call on the government of the Russian Federation to immediately withdraw its troops, return to the place of deployment and stop provoking civil and military confrontation in Ukraine."
| Nice words. What will you do about it? |
As with the troops in downtown Simferopol, the soldiers did not have markings on their uniforms. They would not say where they were from.
There were also other unconfirmed reports of additional Russian military forces arriving in Crimea, including Russian ships landing in Fedosiya, in eastern Crimea.
Crimea, while part of Ukraine, has enjoyed a large degree of autonomy under an agreement with the federal government in Kiev since shortly after Ukrainian independence from the Soviet Union. The strategically important peninsula, which has been the subject of military disputes for centuries, has strong historic, linguistic and cultural ties to Russia. The population of roughly two million is predominantly Russian, followed by a large number of Ukrainians, and Crimean Tatars, people of Turkic-Muslim origin.
| Bonus section: selected NYT maps of the Crimea and of the Ukraine. These are actually pretty good. |