Russia orders troops back to bases

Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered troops that took part in military exercises in an area bordering Ukraine to return to their permanent bases.

Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov told the Interfax news agency on Tuesday that Putin had ordered the troops to return to their usual stations after completing their training.

The exercises took place in western Russia in an area near Ukrainian border.

Ukrainian border guards said on Monday that truckloads of Russian troops had arrived in the Crimean Peninsula. According to the guards, Russian troops began moving into the region after taking control of a border checkpoint on the Ukrainian side of the waterway in the port city of Kerch.

The upper house of the Russian parliament unanimously approved a request by President Putin to deploy troops into Crimea on Sunday, March 2.

Addressing the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva on Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the use of Russian troops in Crimea is necessary “until the normalization of the political situation” on the peninsula. He added that Moscow is protecting Russian nationals from ultra-nationalist groups.

On February 23, the Ukrainian parliament ousted Viktor Yanukovych and named Oleksandr Turchynov, the legislature’s speaker, as interim president.

The move followed weeks of turmoil in the country that was triggered after the ousted president refused to sign an Association Agreement with the European Union in November 2013.