Pro-Russian armed men seized control of parliament and government buildings in the Ukrainian region of Crimea on Thursday and hoisted Russian flags, officials said.
Up to 50 men with weapons marched into the buildings in the regional capital of Simferopol in a dawn raid and blocked government workers from entering, Crimean prime minister Anatoliy Mohilyov said.
Two people are thought to have been killed.
The moves came amid concerns of growing separatism on the overwhelmingly pro-Russian peninsula on the Black Sea after the ousting of Ukraine's pro-Moscow president Viktor Yanukovych.
Mr Yanukovych is thought to be in Russia, where he has been granted protection by the Russian government.
Many in Crimea, which is overwhelmingly Russian rather than Ukrainian speaking, strongly oppose the takeover of Ukraine by pro-EU and anti-Kremlin forces.
"We were building barricades in the night to protect parliament. Then this young Russian guy came up with a pistol... we all lay down, some more ran up, there was some shooting and around 50 went in through the window," Leonid Khazanov, an ethnic Russian, said.
"They're still there... Then the police came, they seemed scared. I asked [the armed men] what they wanted and they said: 'To make our own decisions, not to have Kiev telling us what to do'."
Local authorities were preparing to "take measures", Mr Mohilyov said without elaborating.
Ukraine's interim interior minister Arsen Avakov said security forces were being mobilised.
"Interior troops and the entire police force have been put on alert," Mr Avakov said in a statement on Facebook, adding that the area had been cordoned off "to prevent bloodshed".
In a statement, the regional government asked employees "not to come to work today".
An AFP journalist at the scene said police were pushing people back from around occupied administrative buildings.
Dozens of men in full combat dress but without any markings of affiliation marched into the government and parliament and removed the guards without any fight, the Interfax-Ukraine news agency quoted sources in parliament as saying.
It said they gained entrance to the building complex by firing on the glass doors but that no-one was hurt.
The head of the local assembly for Crimea's Muslim Tatar minority - which is fearful of any pro-Russian separatist moves - confirmed that the buildings had been seized.
"I was told that the buildings of the Crimean Verkhovna Rada [parliament] and the Crimean Council of Ministers [government] are occupied by armed men in uniform without identification signs," Refat Chubarov wrote on Facebook.
"They have not put forward any demands yet."
Russia accepts Yanukovych request for protection
Russia has vowed to abide by its agreements with Ukraine and not move its troops outside of a Russian navy base in the regional Crimean capital.
NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen is warning Moscow not to take any steps that could further destabilise the situation
"I'm extremely concerned about the most recent developments in Crimea," he said.
"This morning's actions by an armed group is dangerous and irresponsible.
ABC Europe correspondent Philip Williams reports on the events in Kiev that changed this ex-Soviet nation's future.
"I urge Russia not to take any action that can escalate tension or create misunderstanding."
The Russian government says Moscow has accepted a request from the deposed Mr Yanukovych for protection.
With Mr Yanukovych heavily criticised by many of his own supporters in Ukraine and many politicians in Russia too, it had seemed unlikely that Russia would offer him support.
Russian state television read out a statement on his behalf in which he declared he was still Ukraine's lawful president.
He also denounced the actions of the new government and parliament in Kiev as illegitimate and warned they would not be accepted by many in south-eastern and southern regions of Ukraine and in Crimea.
Ukraine's parliament in Kiev has voted to approve the formation of an interim government, headed by former opposition leader Arseniy Yatseniuk.
The United States says any Russian military action would be a grave mistake, calling on nations to respect Ukraine's sovereignty and avoid provocative actions.
But Russia's foreign ministry said in a statement that Moscow would defend the rights of its compatriots and react without compromise to any violation of those rights.
It expressed concern about "large-scale human rights violations", attacks and vandalism in the former Soviet republic.
Mr Yanukovych was toppled after three months of unrest led by protesters in Kiev.
He is now on the run being sought by the new authorities for murder in connection with the deaths of around 100 people during the conflict.
Any U.S. steps to punish Russia unlikely to alter course in Ukraine
The Obama administration has several diplomatic and economic options for checking Russia's military incursion in Ukraine. But it is doubtful any would be very effective, experts say.
Activists demonstrate outside the White House to denounce Russia's military involvement in the Crimea region of Ukraine. (Brendan Smialowski / AFP/Getty Images / March 1, 2014)
By Paul Richter
March 1, 2014, 7:01 p.m.
WASHINGTON — President Obama has a variety of ways he can make good on his threat to make Russia pay "costs" for its military intervention in Ukraine.
The U.S. and its European allies can take steps to isolate Russia diplomatically, which would undermine Putin's claim that his country is again ascendant as a world leader. They can also take steps that would pinch the Russian elite, which relishes its access to Western Europe.
Some of the moves would sting. But none is likely to greatly change the behavior of Putin, experts say.
U.S. officials are also threatening to rebuff Russia's expressions of interest in new trade deals and are likely to scratch a possible meeting between the two presidents discussed for sometime this year.
In addition, the administration and European allies could limit visas for travel by some members of the Russian elite, which would be uncomfortable. Many of the country's elite enjoy their travel, own homes in Western Europe and count on sending their children to European schools.
Some North Atlantic Treaty Organization .. http://www.latimes.com/topic/unrest-conflicts-war/defense/nato-ORGOV000049.topic .. members in Eastern Europe have asked for consultations with others in the alliance, a step that usually leads to a strengthening of NATO forces in the region. Russia won't like that. And the U.S. may soon announce troop deployments in the nearby countries, and perhaps naval deployments, to make a visible demonstration of their readiness.
Putin's action also probably means that the U.S. and allies will go ahead with their plans for a missile defense system in Eastern Europe, which has drawn angry denunciations from Moscow.
Obama, in his phone call with Putin, noted that U.S. officials were also consulting with countries that signed the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances. That 1994 treaty entitles Ukraine to seek help from countries, including the United States, when its security is threatened.
Some members of Congress .. http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics/government/u.s.-congress-ORGOV0000131.topic .. are already calling for economic sanctions on Russia. But such penalties could be ineffective, unless the administration is able to enlist many other countries to make them stick. And it's still not clear how far Europe is willing to support Washington in penalizing the Russians.
Europe has been deeply divided on how to deal with Ukraine. And U.S. efforts to enlist Europe have sometimes met strong resistance from the business community there, as happened in the early 1980s when Washington tried, unsuccessfully, to halt construction of a big natural gas pipeline from Russia to Western Europe.
These days Europe is far more dependent on Russian energy and more intertwined with its economy, which will make it more reluctant to punish Putin.
Unless many countries join in, as has happened in the case of Iran, economic penalties usually have limited punch.
Putin's military moves will have one upside for the White House: They are making it much easier for officials to sell their request to Congress for an aid package for Ukraine, including loan guarantees and perhaps also direct aid.
As U.S. officials ponder their options, they also know that ineffective steps have a distinct downside.
They could end up just making the administration look weak, as happened with President Carter's boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics over Russia's invasion of Afghanistan, which failed to alter that military course.
Congressional Republicans are already criticizing the administration for not taking tough enough action to stop the Russians.
If Putin succeeded in bullying Ukraine through an intervention, without effective resistance from abroad, "this would be seen around the world as pretty much of a humiliation of the West," said Francois Heisbourg, chairman of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies.
paul.richter@latimes.com
Times staff writers Kathleen Hennessey and David S. Cloud contributed to this report.
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Times staff writers Kathleen Hennessey and David S. Cloud contributed to this report.
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