Russian aircraft carrying nearly 2,000 suspected troops have landed at a military air base near the regional capital of the restive Crimean peninsula, a top Ukrainian official said Friday, accusing Moscow of an "armed invasion". "Thirteen Russian aircraft landed at the airport of Gvardeyskoye (near Simfero-pol) with 150 people in each one," Sergiy Kunitsyn, the Ukrainian president's special representative in Crimea, told the local ATR television channel, adding the air space had been closed.
It was not immediately clear if Russia had the right to use the base or send additional troops there under its agreements with Ukraine. Earlier, Ukraine's interim president Oleksandr Turchynov Friday appealed to Vladimir Putin to stop Russia's "naked aggression" against the country and withdraw from the flashpoint Crimea peninsula. "I personally appeal to President Putin to immediately stop military provocation and to withdraw from the Autonomous Republic of Crimea... It's a naked aggression against Ukraine," he told reporters after additional Russian forces were reported to have landed in Crimea, where Moscow has maintained a military base for years.
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