Soviet-built BUK surface-to-air missile launcher believed to have brought down Air Malaysia flight at 33,000ft.

The deaths of 295 people aboard Flight MH17 is one of the worst post-war civilian airline incidents involving a plane brought down by a missile attack, gunfire or terrorist-related sabotage.

Prince Charles has compared Vladimir Putin to Adolf Hitler over Russia's actions in Ukraine.

The volunteer in charge of the polling station was candid about the sort of election he admired.

Vladimir Putin made a triumphant visit to Crimea yesterday, as one of the bloodiest days of the conflict in eastern Ukraine pushed the country further toward civil war.

Rebels in Ukraine's eastern town of Slaviansk won a significant victory yesterday, shooting down a helicopter and killing four government troops in an ambush.

Strong local support for the rebel movement has proved a major barrier to Kiev in responding to the situation and the spate of violence.

The mayor of Ukraine's second-largest city was fighting for his life after a daylight assassination attempt as the country's east is dragged toward chaos.

Heavily armed pro-Russian gunmen last night seized another town in east Ukraine, storming the town hall in Kostyantynivka and setting up barricades.

Pro-Russian gunmen in Ukraine demanded a "prisoner" exchange for a team of kidnapped Western officials yesterday.

The acting Ukrainian President, Oleksandr Turchynov, said yesterday that Russia had supported the torture and murder of a local politician in the east of the country who was loyal to Kiev.

A pregnant journalist is recovering in hospital today after a pro-Kremlin political leader in Russia told two male aides to 'violently rape' her at a press conference.

Defeating grim expectations of a failure, talks on the Ukrainian crisis have led to a deal aimed at hauling the region back from the brink.

Jews have reportedly been told to "register" with pro-Russian forces in the east Ukrainian city of Donetsk, in a move condemned by the US as "grotesque and beyond unacceptable".

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.

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.

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.

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.