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"UPDATE: March 1, 5:45 p.m. EST:\u00A0Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke with U.S. President Barack Obama for 90 minutes today regarding the escalating situation in Ukraine.\n\nRussian Pres Putin speaks with Pres Obama, tells him #russia reserves right to protect its interests in eastern #Ukraine\n\u2014 Elise Labott (@eliselabottcnn) March 1, 2014\n\nPutin reiterated his concern for the lives of ethnic Russians in the Crimea region of Ukraine, and said that much of the violence in that country was started by \"ultra nationalists.\"\nObama said he is concerned about any plans Russia has for intervention in Ukraine, and a statement released by the White House says the U.S. will suspend its participation in preparatory meetings for the G-8 Summit, the meeting of international leaders that is scheduled to take place from June 4-5 in Sochi, Russia. The U.S. president also warned of the economic damage Russia would be doing to itself if it continues to be aggressive.\n\"Russia\u2019s continued violation of international law will lead to greater political and economic isolation,\" said a White House statement regarding the call.\nThe White House statement made no mention of U.S. military action.\nPutin also spoke with United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, though the details of that conversation haven't been released.\nUPDATE: March 1, 4:35 p.m. EST: U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said on Saturday that the United Nations was \u201Cgravely concerned\u201D with Russia's invasion of Ukraine.\nThe secretary general asked that Russia respect Ukraine's sovereignty, and said he plans to speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin later today.\nUPDATE: March 1, 3:30 p.m. EST: As the world waits for what comes of a closed door United Nations Security Council meeting on Ukraine, politicians within that nation are figuring out what steps to take next in response to a limited Russian invasion.\nKIEV, Ukraine - Acting Ukrainian president Oleksandr Turchynov has called for military mobilization in response to 6,000 Russian soldiers that swept into Ukraine's autonomous pro-Russia region of Crimea over the past 24 hours.\n\nActing Ukraine President @Turchynov: 'Military on highest alert, heightened security at nuclear stations, airports. I urge all to be calm.'\n\u2014 Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) March 1, 2014\n\nLikely presidential candidate Vitaly Klitschko also asked for a \u201Cgeneral mobilization\u201D of forces following a unanimous Russian parliament vote to approve the invasion of Ukraine, but it was the country's prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk\u00A0who delivered perhaps the most provocative message out of Ukraine.\n\n#Ukraine PM @Yatsenyuk_AP: Military intervention is unacceptable. Ukraine is ready to defend its sovereignty. pic.twitter.com/F0ytS9gbIw\n\u2014 Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) March 1, 2014\n\nFormer Ukrainian Prime Minister and onetime presidential candidate Yulia Tymoshenko, who was released from jail only last week, struck a different tone by asking that her country stay calm, according to The Guardian.\n\"Russia wants to kill the independence of Ukraine, to get us to surrender,\" Tymoshenko said in a statement. \"We are a peaceful people , we are a peaceful country but if we accept the ultimatum now from Russia - we lose our country. I propose to act, but to keep calm and not fully react against Russian aggression and not to act according to their plans, exacerbating the situation.\"\nUPDATE: March 1, 10:21 am EST: The upper house approved the use of force in the Ukraine.\nKIEV, Ukraine - Tensions escalated in Crimea on Saturday as Russian President Vladimir Putin asked his upper house of parliament to approve the use of armed forces in the autonomous republic, heeding the call by its newly appointed prime minister for him to intervene and stoking fears of an Abkhazia scenario, in which Moscow would invade the territory with its troops as it did previously in Georgia.\nPutin said the move is needed to protect ethnic Russians and the personnel of a Russian military base in Ukraine's strategic region of Crimea, The Associated Press reported.\nEarlier, Ukraine\u2019s defense minister said Russia had already deployed some 6,000 troops to Crimea, on top of the 15,000 permanently stationed at its Black Sea Fleet base in the port city of Sevastopol.\nSee also: 5 Big Questions About the Future of Ukraine\nThousands of armed Russian soldiers in military fatigues, along with several armored personnel vehicles and military helicopters, on Saturday morning blockaded the autonomous republic\u2019s government buildings and locked down two main airports, forcing all flights to be cancelled.\nInternet and phone access was also scant after unknown men cut several fiber optic transmission cables of Ukraine\u2019s Ukrtelecom company late on Friday.\nAt least one main television station was seized, as well as the office of the Crimean Center for Investigative Reporting, and Russian military personnel blocked access to a Ukrainian coast guard base.\nUkraine\u2019s newly appointed government accused Russian armed forces on Friday of mobilizing in Crimea, with Interior Mininster Arsen Avakov calling it an \u201Cinvasion\u201D and a violation of Ukraine\u2019s sovereign territory.\nIn a live briefing from the White House pressroom on Friday, U.S. President Barack Obama weighed in, warning Russia that there will be \u201Ccosts\u201D to military intervention.\n\nPro-Russian gathering at Lenin Square in eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk right now. RT @novostidnua: \u0414\u043E\u043D\u0435\u0446\u043A \u0441\u0435\u0439\u0447\u0430\u0441 pic.twitter.com/REl5rkcBrw\n\u2014 Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) March 1, 2014\n\n\u00A0\nUkrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk, who\u2019s spent less than a week in the position after a new government was appointed following the ouster of deposed President Viktor Yanukovych and his government, said during a cabinet meeting Saturday that the men armed with automatic rifles were Russian soldiers and blamed Putin for \u201Cprovoking a confrontation\u201D in violation of an agreement allowing Russia to base its soldiers and Black Sea Fleet in the Crimean city of Sevastopol.\n\u201CIn the worst-case scenario, responsibility for a confrontation will lie exclusively with the Russian side and on the leadership of the country personally,\u201D Yatseniuk said. \u201CWe demand that the Russian government and authorities recall their troops and return to their places of deployment. Stop provoking civil and military confrontation in Ukraine.\u201D\nAround the same time, acting Ukrainian President Oleksandr Turchynov accused Russia of \"provoking a conflict\" by backing the seizure of the Crimean parliament building and other government buildings.\n\"They're playing the Abkhazia scenario,\" Turchynov said during a briefing inside the country's parliament building in Kiev late Friday night and referring to the 2008 Russian invasion of Georgia that led to the two breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.\nBut Crimea\u2019s new Prime Minister Sergei Aksenov, declaring that he had sole control over the Crimean military and police, pleaded for more to come.\n\u201CI ask Russian President Vladimir Putin to help keep peace and calm on the territory of the Republic of Crimea,\u201D Aksenov said in a statement broadcast on Russian state television. He added that he had seized control of all Ukrainian military and police forces in Crimea and ordered dissenters within the units to quit their posts.\n\u201CAll commanders are to fulfill only my orders and commands. I ask those who disagree to leave the service,\u201D said Aksenov, who heads Crimea\u2019s main pro-Russia party, which received just 4 percent of the vote in 2010 elections.\nAksenov was appointed to his new post by lawmakers in the Crimean parliament on Thursday who were watched by heavily armed soldiers nearby during the voting. The parliament also voted to hold a referendum on further autonomy from Ukraine on May 25, the same day new Ukrainian presidential elections are slated to be held. On Saturday, that referendum was moved to March 30, Aksenov said during a special session of Crimea\u2019s parliament.\n\nPro-Russian activists clash with Maidan near the regional government building in Kharkiv on March 1, 2014Image: Sergey BobokThe Russian presidential administration responded quickly to Aksenov\u2019s appeal on Saturday, saying it \u201Cwould not go without attention,\u201D state news agency RIA Novosti reported, citing an official statement.\nShortly after, Russia\u2019s foreign ministry claimed in a statement that \u201Cunidentified armed men\u201D from Kiev attempted to seize Crimea\u2019s interior ministry early Saturday morning, but were repelled by \u201Cself-defense\u201D units it says are keeping the peace there. The statement mentioned that there were injured \u201Cvictims\u201D as a result of the clashes, but did not specify the number or type of injuries.\nRussian foreign ministry said the alleged incident \u201Cconfirms the desire of well-known political circles in Kiev to destabilize the situation on the peninsula.\n\u201CWe call on everyone who gives similar orders from Kiev to [show] restraint. We consider further incitement of the already tense situation in Crimea extremely irresponsible,\u201D it continued.\nVladimir Krashevsky, a top police official in Simferopol, refuted the Russian foreign ministry\u2019s report of any such attack on the interior ministry building during an impromptu press conference Saturday.\n\"There was no attack here and there won't be one,\" he said.\nBut it seemed to be enough for Putin, who asked his parliament for permission to send more Russian troops to the peninsula.\n\nAnti-Yanukovych protesters wearing fatigues guard a barricade in Kiev's Independence Square, the epicenter of the country's current unrest, Ukraine, Saturday, March 1, 2014. Image: Emilio Morenatti/Associated PressCrimea long volatile\nCrimea has been an historically volatile region since Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev transferred the territory from Russia to Ukraine in 1954.\nWith an ethnic Russian population of about 58 percent, Crimea\u2019s cultural links with Russia have been very strong. About 24 percent of the population is comprised of Ukrainians, while about 12 percent of its inhabitants are ethnic Tatar who began returning to their homeland of Crimea in the late 1980s after being expelled by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin following World War II.\nA poll released last week by the Democratic Initiatives Foundation found that some 42 percent of Crimea residents would prefer Ukraine to unite with Russia.\nSeparatist sentiment grows\nAs the situation in Crimea intensified, the separatist sentiment there seemed to spread to regions in Ukraine\u2019s east, near its border with Russia.\nIn Donetsk, more than 7,000 people gathered on central Lenin Square, during which there was talk of secession and a \u201Cresistance governor\u201D was appointed.\nSimilar rallies were held in Dnipropetrovsk and Nikolev. In Kharkiv, pro-Russian demonstrators clashed with pro-European ones, taking over the regional government administration building and replacing the blue-and-yellow Ukrainian flag with the red-white-and-blue Russian flag at the building\u2019s entrance.\n\nAmazing shot of #Russia flag replacing #Ukraine flag in city of Kharkiv. http://t.co/PH93CebXWW pic.twitter.com/vRXMwcoWaW\n\u2014 Jim Roberts (@nycjim) March 1, 2014\n\n\u00A0\nHave something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.\n      window._msla=window.loadScriptAsync||function(src,id){if(document.getElementById(id))return;var js=document.createElement('script');js.id=id;js.src=src;document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0].parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);};\n_msla(\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\",\"twitter_jssdk\");"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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