Armed men in military uniform stand near the Ukrainian coat of arms, outside the territory of a Ukrainian military unit in the village of Perevalnoye, outside Simferopol today. Photograph: Alexey Furman/EPA
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Ukraine getting ready for war as US threatens Russia

Armed men in military uniform stand near the Ukrainian coat of arms, outside the territory of a Ukrainian military unit in the village of Perevalnoye, outside Simferopol today. Photograph: Alexey Furman/EPA
Armed men in military uniform stand near the Ukrainian coat of arms, outside the territory of a Ukrainian military unit in the village of Perevalnoye, outside Simferopol today. Photograph: Alexey Furman/EPA
Washington has threatened to isolate Russia economically while Ukraine is mobilising for war, after president Vladimir Putin said he had the right to invade his neighbour in Moscow’s biggest confrontation with the West since the Cold War.

“This is not a threat: this is actually the declaration of war to my country,” Ukraine’s prime minister Arseny Yatseniuk, head of a pro-Western government that took power when Russian ally Viktor Yanukovich fled last week, said in English.

Mr Putin secured permission from his parliament yesterday to use military force to protect Russian citizens in Ukraine and told US president Barack Obama he had the right to defend Russian interests and nationals, spurning Western pleas not to intervene