The upper house of Russian parliament approved Russian President Vladimir Putin’s request to send troops to Crimean Ukraine, according to USA Today on Saturday.
The greenlight follows the Kremlin saying Saturday that Putin had asked the country’s parliament to send military troops to Ukraine.
“I’m submitting a request for using the armed forces of the Russian Federation on the territory of Ukraine pending the normalization of the socio-political situation in that country,” Putin said in a statement publicized by the Kremlin.
A day earlier, in a hastily organized press conference, President Barack Obama warned that there would be a “cost” of Russian troops going into Crimean Ukraine.
Read the text of Putin’s request here.
