UKRAINE CRISIS - RUSSIA Sends WARNING to UKRAINE as Tensions Grow in CRIMEA

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it appears Ukraine's coup government may have employed mercenaries in a bid to shut down a move in Donetsk to expand the industrial city's autonomy.

Pro-Russian citizens have twice stormed the regional administration headquarters in the east Ukrainian city. SBU, Ukraine's security service, arrested Pavel Gubarev, a Donetsk businessman who called himself the "people's governor."

On Friday Press TV featured a video showing men with weapons and body armor on a street where a pro-Russian demonstration was held. On Wednesday a Russian diplomat told Interfax that 300 employees of Blackwater, now known as Academi, had arrived in the pro-Russian city.

The security outfit is notorious for its trigger-happy posture. In 2007, contractors from the company killed 17 Iraqis in Baghdad as they cleared the way for U.S. State Department vehicles transporting Bush administration diplomats en route to a meeting with U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) officials.

A pro-Russian force opened fire in seizing a Ukrainian military base in Crimea on Monday and NATO announced reconnaissance flights along its eastern frontiers as confrontation around the Black Sea peninsula showed no sign of easing.

Ukrainian activists trying to cross into Crimea to show solidarity with opponents of last week's Russian military takeover there said they were halted by men in uniforms of the now outlawed riot police. One of these fired at close range, hitting a man in the chest, apparently with rubber bullets.

With diplomacy at a standstill, Russia said the United States had spurned an invitation to hold new talks on resolving the crisis, the worst East-West standoff since the Cold War -- although Washington said later a meeting of foreign ministers was possible this week, if Moscow shows it is ready to "engage".

Officially, US debt stands at more than $17 trillion. In reality, it is many times more. The cost of the US invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq may be more than six trillion dollars. President Obama's illegal invasion of Libya cost at least a billion dollars and left that country devastated. The costs of US regime change efforts in Syria are likely thus far enormous, both in dollars and lives. That's still a secret.
  The untold story behind the crisis is that this is an energy tug of war being fought between Russia and the west, with Ukraine caught in the middle.

Former congressman Ron Paul weighed in on the Ukraine situation yesterday, warning that the hostilities are rooted in empire building and vying for geopolitical control.

Speaking with RT, which has itself become a focal point for western criticism of Russia, the former Congressman urged that it makes "no sense" for America to become entangled in the affairs of Ukraine.

"I don't think we have any business there," Paul told anchor Liz Wahl in one of her last interviews before she made headlines herself by resigning on air.

In Sevastopol, the Russian soldiers stormed the Ukrainian military unit A2355 , said the agency " Interfax- Ukraine " duty of the assistant .

He said the Russian military army "KAMAZ" struck the gate of a military unit , captured near building and break out to the command post .