Ukraine crisis: Russia orders troops into rebel areas

Russian President Vladimir Putin has deployed troops in two rebel-held areas of eastern Ukraine after recognizing them as independent states. Footage posted overnight shows Russian military vehicles heading towards the Ukrainian border.

Russia has said it will maintain peace in the breakaway region it has supported since 2014. But the United States says it's "bullshit" to call them peacekeepers. Instead, he accused Russia of concocting a pretext for war.

Ukraine's president said his country was "afraid of nothing and no one." action President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for "clear and effective measures to support" Ukraine's international in a late-night televised address to the nation allies. 

"It is essential to see now who our true friends and partners are and who will continue to frighten the Russian Federation with words," he added. Several countries, including the UK, are expected to impose sanctions on Russia in response.

According to US estimates, fears of an invasion have risen in recent months as Russia has amassed about 150,000 troops along the Ukrainian border. However, US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield dismissed Russia's claims that troops played a "peacekeeping" role at an emergency UN Security Council meeting, saying, "we know who they are."

He said that recognizing Luhansk and Donetsk as independents is part of Russia's efforts to create a base from which to attack Ukraine. Russia has supported a bloody armed insurgency in eastern Ukraine for eight years.

Russian passports have been distributed to many people in Donetsk and Luhansk in recent years. Since last weekend, rebel-held areas have been evacuating women, children, and the elderly in Russia. In an hour-long speech on Monday, Putin said Ukraine was an integral part of his country's history and described eastern Ukraine as "the land of ancient Russia."

Russia's ambassador to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, stressed the need to protect rebel-held areas in eastern Ukraine's Donbas region from Ukrainian aggression. "Allowing new bloodshed in the Donbas is something we don't want to do," he said.