Russia’s Black Sea Fleet has told Ukrainian forces in Crimea to surrender by 5 am (3am Irish time) tomorrow or face a military assault, Interfax news agency quoted a source in the Ukrainian Defence Ministry as saying this evening.
The ultimatum, Interfax said, was issued by Alexander Vitko, the fleet’s commander.
“If they do not surrender before 5 am tomorrow, a real assault will be started against units and divisions of the armed forces across Crimea,” the agency quoted the ministry source as saying.
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The Russian defence ministry was subsequently quoted as dismissing the claims - emanating from Ukrainian defence sources - as “utter nonsense”, but the reports did nothing to lessen the sense of deepening crisis.
US president Barack Obama said today that Russia has violated international law in its military intervention in Ukraine and said the US government has warned it will look at a series of economic and diplomatic sanctions that would isolate Moscow.
Russian president Vladimir Putin needs to allow international monitors to mediate a deal in Ukraine acceptable to all Ukrainian people, Mr Obama told reporters before he met with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“Over time this will be a costly proposition for Russia. And now is the time for them to consider whether they can serve their interests in a way that resorts to diplomacy as opposed to force,” he said.
Earlier Russia dismissed criticism of troop movement and insisted forces that have streamed into Ukraine are protecting Russian citizens living there.
Ukraine says Russian forces are still surrounding its military bases in Crimea and building up armour near the Black Sea peninsula, as Britain warned that Europe was facing its biggest crisis of the century.
The tense stand-off continued as EU foreign minister meet to discuss Ukraine, and as US secretary of state John Kerry prepared to fly to Kiev, having warned Russia that it could pay "a huge price" for its military incursion in Crimea. Moscow's stock markets were sharply down and the rouble plunged to a record low against the dollar.
The Russian foreign ministry said today that recent remarks by Mr Kerry contained threats against Russia and were “unacceptable”.
Foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said it is necessary to use Russian troops in Ukraine “until the normalisation of the political situation”.
“Those who are trying to interpret the situation as a sort of aggression and threatening sanctions and boycotts, these are the same partners of ours who have consistently encouraged their political forces in the ultimatum to refuse dialogue and ultimately have polarised Ukrainian society,” he said.
Ukrainian prime minister Arseny Yatseniuk warned today that a military conflict in his east European country would threaten the stability of the whole region.
He also said Ukraine would not permit ethnic Russians who have declared themselves the leaders of Crimea to annex the southern region, which is now in the hands of Russian forces.
Russian troops and pro-Moscow militia have encircled Ukrainian bases at Perevalnoye and Feodosia, where soldiers loyal to Kiev have so far refused demands to surrender and to swear allegiance to Crimea’s new local government.
Ukraine’s border guard service said this morning that armoured vehicles were massing across the narrow Kerch Strait that separates Russia from Crimea. He also said Russian navy ships were at sea close to their base at Sevastopol, which Moscow leases from Ukraine.
In Crimea’s capital, Simferopol, traffic was moving freely and people were going about their normal business on a warm and sunny morning. Many of Crimea’s majority ethnic-Russians have welcomed Moscow’s troops as protectors from what they call an anti-Russian government in Kiev.
The calm in Simferopol belied rising international concern over the future of Ukraine, which has called up its army reserves due to what it calls a de-facto declaration of war by Russia.
In Kiev, Britain’s foreign secretary William Hague told the BBC that Ukraine represented the “biggest crisis in Europe of the 21st century.”
“Clearly we are very concerned about any possibly of a further move by Russia in other parts of Ukraine...This is a very tense situation and dangerous situation that Russia’s intervention has now produced.”
This morning, Moscow’s main stock markets were down by more than 7 percent, the rouble dipped to new lows against the dollar, and Russia’s central bank raised interest rates.
Nato called on Ukraine and Russia to "seek a peaceful solution through bilateral dialogue, with international facilitation...and through the dispatch of international observers under the auspices of the United Nations Security Council or the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe."
In a phone conversation with German chancellor Angela Merkel last night, Russian president Vladimir Putin insisted Moscow was acting appropriately against "the unrelenting threat of violence" to "Russian citizens and the whole Russian-speaking population" in Ukraine.
Berlin said, however, that Mr Putin had “accepted the chancellor’s proposal to set up immediately a fact-finding mission as well as a contact group, possibly led by the OSCE, to begin political dialogue.”
Moscow still recognises Ukraine’s ousted president, Viktor Yanukovich, as its rightful leader, and claims the new pro-western authorities in Kiev is a major threat to the security of the country’s Russian-speaking population.
Ukrainian ultra-nationalists featured prominently in the revolution that toppled Mr Yanukovich, but the new government insists they have no intention of discriminating against the country’s millions of Russian-speakers.
Additional reporting wires