Ukraine’s United Nations ambassador has asked an emergency session of the world body’s Security Council “to do everything possible now” to stop Russian “aggression” as troops took over the strategic Crimea region.

The discord between Russia and Ukraine sharpened today when the pro-Russian leader of Ukraine’s Crimea region claimed control of the military and police and appealed to Russia’s president for help in keeping peace there.

Barack Obama has warned Moscow “there will be costs” if Russia intervenes militarily in crisis-torn Ukraine.

Russian forces have been accused of “an armed invasion” after units blocked a Ukrainian military airport in the Black Sea port of Sevastopol in Crimea.

Dozens of armed men in military uniforms have seized an airport in Ukraine’s strategic Crimea region, it is reported.

Russia’s order for 150,000 troops to test their combat readiness near Ukraine’s border has prompted a blunt warning from the United States that any military intervention in the crisis-torn nation would be a “grave mistake”.

Ukraine’s acting interior minister says troops and police have been put on high alert after dozens of men seized local government and legislature buildings in the Crimea region.

Fighting broke out between pro and anti-Russian demonstrators in Ukraine’s Crimea region as Russian president Vladimir Putin ordered military exercises just across the border.

In football’s catechism of cliché it is customary to claim that some one-season wonder is “frighteningly good”.

Flags flew at half-mast and entertainment programmes were cancelled across Russia today to mark a day of mourning for the victims of a plane crash in the Siberian city of Irkutsk that killed at least 122 people and left nine others missing.

A THAI boy has become the 70th Asian to die of bird flu, authorities said yesterday as reports warned a flu pandemic could cost the US economy hundreds of billions of dollars as well as millions of lives.

A missile fired during a military training exercise may have caused a Russian airliner to explode.