KEIV - Ukraine has put its armed forces on full combat alert and warned Moscow that any military intervention in the country would lead to war after upper house of Russia's parliament agented Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, the authority to use the country’s armed forces in its neighbour. 
After a more than three-hour meeting with security and defence chiefs, Oleksander Turchinov, Ukraine's interim president, said there was no justification for what he called Russian aggression against his country.
Turchynov said that authorities had boosted security around the country’s nuclear facilities, airports and other "strategic facilities".
Standing beside Turchinov, Arseny Yatseniuk, Ukraine's prime minister, said he had urged Russia to return its troops to base in the Crimea region during a phone call with Dmitry Medvedev, Russia's prime minister, and called for talks.
Putin and Barack Obama, the US president, held a 90-minute telephone call on Saturday in which the Russian president told his US counterpart that Russia reserves the right to protect its interests and those of Russian speakers if there is violence in east Ukraine or Crimea, Russia's RIA Novosti news agency reported.
Source: BBC
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