The Ukraine for the day

Slate has an article about the latest from The Ukraine:

Russia's upper house of parliament has approved President Putin's request for Russian forces to be used in the Ukraine. He had asked that Russian forces be used "until the normalisation of the political situation in the country". Kiev has reacted angrily to days of military movements in the Crimea, accusing Moscow of trying to provoke the new government into an armed conflict. Interim President Olexander Turchynov has called an emergency session of his security chiefs.
Russia's Vladimir Putin submitted the request for troops "in connection with the extraordinary situation in the Ukraine and the threat to the lives of Russian citizens", the Kremlin said.
The BBC's Richard Galpin in Moscow, Russia says it is potentially significant that the request was for deployment in the Ukraine as a whole, and not specifically for flash-points such as the Crimea.
The upper house went into a special session almost immediately after Putin made the request, in what seems to have been a carefully co-ordinated series of events during the day Earlier, the lower house of Parliament had urged the president to take whatever measures were necessary to "stabilize" the situation in the Crimea.
During the upper house debate, one legislator accused President Barack Obama of crossing "a red line" with his comments that there would be costs if Russia intervened militarily in the Ukraine.
The upper house has recommended that the Russian ambassador to the US should be recalled, although the decision lies with Putin.
The request follow days of military activity in the Crimea, during which unidentified armed men moved in to take over the regional parliament, state television and telecommunications hubs. Soldiers from Russia's Black Sea Fleet, which is based in the Crimea, are reported to be guarding some administrative buildings and military bases.
Amid the closure of airspace over the Crimea's regional capital Simferopol, there were unconfirmed reports that Russian planes were flying in thousands of troops.
Ukrainian Defence Minister Ihor Tenyukh said there are now an extra six thousand Russian troops in the Crimea, alongside an additional thirty armored vehicles.
Under the agreement governing the presence of the fleet in the Crimea, the Russians must coordinate all troop movements outside the fleet's base with the Ukrainian authorities beforehand.
The newly-elected pro-Moscow leader of the Crimea, Sergiy Aksyonov, said he had appealed to Putin for help to ensure peace on the peninsula, a request which the Kremlin said it would "not leave unnoticed".
Events in the Crimea have angered the new interim government in Kiev, which does not recognize the province's new leadership, and has alarmed Western leaders. President Turchynov accused Russia of trying to provoke Kiev into "armed conflict", but said they would not react.
President Barack Obama said that "any violation of Ukraine sovereignty... would be deeply destabilizing". He warned of the "costs" of any Russian intervention in the Ukraine and commended the interim government in Kiev for its "restraint".
Meanwhile, big pro-Russian rallies are being held in several Ukrainian cities outside the Crimea. In Donetsk, Yanukovych's traditional stronghold, demonstrators from a crowd of some 7,000 tried unsuccessfully to occupy the regional administration building, raising a Russian tricolour on a nearby flag-post
In Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-biggest city, scuffles broke out when protesters with Russian flags tried to occupy the regional administration building
In Mariupol, in the south-east, hundreds of protesters carrying Russian flags gathered outside the city council in eastern and southern Ukraine.

Rico says that, if this sort of thing catches on, maybe we can invade northern Mexico and sort out our drug smuggling problem...