Ukraine's armed forces and government suffered a public humiliation yesterday after pro-Russian separatists seized six of their armoured personnel vehicles and paraded them through the streets.

A prolonged and increasingly vicious confrontation in eastern Ukraine turned into armed conflict yesterday.

Are some of the 'patriotic' gunmen seizing police stations and buildings in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine actually Russian troops?

Vladimir Putin will not stop trying to expand Russia until he has “conquered” Belarus, the Baltic states and Finland, one of his closest former advisers has said.

Russian forces have completed their takeover of the Ukrainian navy's assets in Crimea with the storming of the minesweeper Cherkessy.

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.

New Zealand will not recognise the result of today's referendum on the status of Crimea, Foreign Minister Murray McCully says.

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.

Ukraine is bracing for new pro-Russian protests in the tense eastern city of Donetsk after Moscow threatened to stop gas supplies to the country.

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.

Crimea is now part of Russia; a referendum to endorse the decision would take place within 10 days; the only legitimate forces here are those of Vladimir Putin.

A former fighter pilot whose bold march against the Russian soldiers occupying his airbase was one of the most stunning acts of resistance in this phoney war.

Prime Minister John Key says New Zealand athletes should complete in the Sochi Winter Paralympics despite Russia's intervention in Ukraine.

Up to 16,000 Russian troops have tightened their stranglehold on Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula, openly defying the US and the European Union.

Ukraine's former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko has appealed for the US and Britain to adopt the "strongest means" against Russia.

Ukraine is Europe's second-largest country, made up of wide, fertile agricultural plains and large pockets of heavy industry in the east.

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

The Russians have set the trap perfectly. Their prey is the Crimea.

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.

The task of controlling entry to a city of almost three million has fallen to a 30-year-old electrician called Andreiy, who mans a motorway checkpoint made of old tyres.

Their faces tell the story of the year that they have suffered.