Ukraine's Crimea Leader Asks Putin for Help

In a statement reported by local and Russian news agencies on Saturday, Sergei Aksenov declared that the armed forces, the police, the national security service and border guards will answer only to his orders.

He said any commanders who do not agree should leave their posts.

As armed men described as Russian troops took control of key airports and a communications center in Crimea on Friday, Ukraine accused Russia of a “military invasion and occupation'' - a claim that brought an alarming new dimension to the crisis, and raised fears that Moscow is moving to annex a strategic peninsula where Russia's Black Sea fleet is based.

In response to that, Ukraine's new prime minister said his country would not be drawn into a military conflict by Russian "provocations" in the Crimea region and renewed his appeal to Moscow to halt military movements there, Al Jazeera reported.

"It is unacceptable when armored Russian military vehicles are out in the centre of Ukrainian towns," Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk said before a government meeting in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev.

The newly formed government in Kiev accuses Russia of deploying 2,000 troops to the Crimean region, which has a majority of ethnic Russians and is defying the oust of Moscow-backed Ukrainian leader Viktor Yanukovich.

Ukraine's defence minister said Russia had "recently" brought 6,000 additional personnel into Ukraine and that the Ukrainian military were on high alert in the Crimea region.

Moscow, denying accusations of staging an aggression against its neighbor country and former member the Soviet union, said any military movement in Crimea is part of an agreement that was previously made.

This comes after US President Barack Obama warned arch foe Putin his country would pay "costs" if it is to stage a military intervention.