Ukraine warned its conflict with Russia had entered a "military stage" and authorised its troops to open fire in self-defence after suffering the first casuality since Crimea was seized.

Crimea has voted to embrace Kremlin rule, escalating an already grave international crisis to an incendiary level.

Russian President Vladimir Putin's Crimean gamble will face its biggest test tonight, when the EU and US ready sanctions to punish him for a land-grab.

A Ukrainian border patrol plane came under fire near the regional boundary with Crimea as tensions increased further in the contested peninsula yesterday.

With a handful of houses, a couple of shops and some crumbling Kruschev-era flats, the village of Lyubovnets, near the northern side of Sevastopol's bay, is not much to look at.

Russia's President is deserving of respect - the kind you would show if you were in close proximity to a hissing cobra, writes John Armstrong.

Unable to intervene militarily and with no direct economic levers to pull, the West believes it is successfully pressing Russia in the Ukraine crisis.

They stood together with their arms linked: a priest, a former soldier, two housewives and a teacher.

The trouble in Ukraine has left NZ in a critical position as it vies for selection to the United Nations Security Council, an expert in international relations says.

Foreign Minister Murray McCully has added his voice to international calls for restraint any further escalation of tensions between Russia and Ukraine.

Condemned to death at the hands of a private extermination company, around 150 of the stray dogs from Sochi's Olympic Park have been saved after the intervention of a Russian billionaire.

Vladimir Putin did not need to try to steal the limelight when this Olympic show, the most expensive the world has ever seen, was all his.

An Islamic militant group says it was behind the Volgograd bombings that killed 34 people - and they'll give tourists at Sochi for the Olympics 'a present, too'.

Official says there's no need to rethink safety measures for Sochi Winter Olympics despite bombings in Russia.

Two New Zealanders who spent two months in a Russian prison following a protest at an Arctic oil platform have returned home.

Two Kiwis who were among a group of Greenpeace protesters arrested for hooliganism by Russian authorities, are expected home in the next few days.

It's not unusual, of course, for the Olympics and politics to become intertwined. But it is quite a while since the impact has been so pronounced.

Charges against 29 Greenpeace activists, including two Kiwis, who faced prison in Russia have been dropped following a Kremlin amnesty.