Free Thinking News's video: Ukraine Pro-Russian Masked Men TAKE OVER Building in Crimea

Ukraine Pro-Russian Masked Men TAKE OVER Building in Crimea SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine — Masked men with guns seized government buildings in the capital of Ukraine's Crimea region on Thursday, barricading themselves inside and raising the Russian flag after mysterious overnight raids that appeared to be the work of militant Russian nationalists who want this volatile Black Sea region ruled from Moscow. Police officers sealed off access to the buildings but said that they had no idea who was behind the assault, which sharply escalated tensions in a region that serves as home to Russia's Black Sea Fleet and also to a number of radical pro-Russia groups that have appealed to Moscow to protect them from the new interim government in Kiev, the Ukrainian capital. A woman and her child lighting candles Wednesday in memory of protesters killed in recent clashes with the police in Kiev.In Ukraine, Naming of Interim Government Gets Mixed ResponseFEB. 26, 2014 Catherine Ashton, left, the European Union's foreign policy chief, met in Kiev on Tuesday with Yulia V. Tymoshenko, the former Ukrainian prime minister who was freed from prison.Tentatively, European Adding to the confusion, Viktor F. Yanukovych, the ousted president of Ukraine, declared on Thursday that he remained the country's lawful leader and appealed to Russia to "secure my personal safety from the actions of extremists." Russian news agencies reported that he had already arrived in Russia, but officials did not immediately confirm that. In the Ukrainian Parliament in Kiev, lawmakers dismissed Mr. Yanukovych's statement as irrelevant and a reflection that he had lost touch with political reality. "Yanukovych is no longer president," Arseniy P. Yatsenyuk, who was overwhelmingly approved as acting prime minister by the Parliament on Thursday, told the Ukrainska Pravda news site. "He is a wanted person who is suspected of mass murder and crimes against humanity." In an interview outside the Parliament chamber, Kateryna Vashchuk, a lawmaker from the Volyn region in western Ukraine, said, "It shows once again that this person does not evaluate the situation objectively as it is." Amid the turmoil in Crimea, Arsen Avakov, Ukraine's acting interior minister, called for calm in a posting on his Facebook page, saying that unspecified measures were "being taken to counter the extremist actions and prevent an escalation of an armed conflict in the center of the city." But it was unclear how much authority Mr. Avakov has over the police and other state services in Crimea, where a heavily ethnic Russian and Russian-speaking population mostly views the Ukrainian government installed after the ouster last weekend of Mr. Yanukovych as the illegitimate result of a fascist coup. "Provocateurs are on the march," Mr. Avakov added. "It's a time for cool heads, the healthy consolidation of forces, and careful action." Outside the occupied legislature building, columns of several hundred pro-Russia protesters forced their way through police lines chanting "Rossiya, Rossiya" — "Russia, Russia" — and waving Russian flags. The leader of a group called the Russian Movement for Crimea read out Mr. Yanukovych's reported statement declaring himself to be the legitimate president. "We agree, we agree," the crowd shouted. One man shouted through a bullhorn: "We are not separatists. Russia, Ukraine and Belarus are one country." As the standoff unfolded, the entrance to the Crimean Parliament was barricaded with wooden boxes, metal garbage skips and other objects. Most streets in Simferopol were empty of traffic after the authorities ordered a citywide holiday, and the Crimean legislature called an emergency session for Friday afternoon. Refat Chubarov, a member of the assembly and a leader of Crimea's ethnic Tatar minority, said he had not been informed about the session and warned that any vote to separate Crimea from Ukraine would be "very dangerous." Asserting that Russian armored vehicles were waiting outside the city, he called for calm but also urged Tatar residents to form "self-defense" units to protect their interests. He blamed pro-Russia forces for the overnight seizure of government buildings, describing the action as "a direct interference in the affairs of Crimea and of Ukraine."