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Pro-Russia forces storm Crimea naval base
Pro-Moscow self-defence forces break into the Ukrainian naval base at Sevastopol in Crimea and raise Russian flags, a day after Russia annexed the peninsula.
Pro-Russian activists, apparently Crimean self-defence forces, overtook Sevastopol base without using violence.
Several men in unmarked uniforms have entered a building at the Ukrainian naval headquarters in the Crimean port of Sevastopol and were in talks with servicemen there, a Ukrainian naval spokesman said.
The spokesman on Wednesday said there had been no violence and he believed the men belonged to so-called "self-defence" units, mainly made up of volunteers who have supported Crimea's transition from Ukrainian to Russian control, Reuters news agency reported.
About a dozen Ukrainian servicemen were later seen exiting the base unarmed.
It comes a day after Crimean leaders signed a treaty with Russia absorbing the peninsula into the Russian Federation after a disputed referendum.The move has been widely condemned internationally.
Crimean and Russian officials say the referendum showed overwhelming public support for joining Russia.
But the Ukrainian government in Kiev and the West say the vote - organised in two weeks and boycotted by many of Crimea's Ukrainian and Tatar minorities - was illegal, and the results will not be recognised.
On Monday, the US and the EU imposed sanctions on several officials from Russia and Ukraine accused of involvement in Moscow's actions in the Black Sea peninsula.
Brussels and the White House have said the sanctions will be expanded now that the treaty on Crimea has been signed.
Moscow has warned this is "unacceptable and will not remain without consequences".
Three Russian flags were flying at one of the entrances to the base. A witness told Reuters news agency that armed men, believed to be Russian soldiers, were at the gates of the base where the flags were flying.
At a cabinet meeting in Kiev, acting Ukraine Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk asked his first vice PM Vitaliy Yarema and Defence Minister Ihor Tenyukh to fly to Crimea immediately to de-escalate the crisis and try to prevent the conflict from turning into a military one. The officials immediately left for the airport.
Ukrainian authorities issued the self-defence order following the death of a Ukrainian serviceman on Tuesday.
"There are about 200 of them, some wearing balaclavas. The officers have barricaded themselves inside the building," Ukrainian navy spokesman Sergiy Bogdanov told AFP news agency.
