President Vladimir Putin has ordered troops into eastern Ukraine as part of a ‘peacekeeping mission’. 

It comes after he recognised two separatist territories, Donetsk and Luhansk, as independent states.

It’s not clear whether Russian troops will remain only in the eastern regions, or whether they’ll seek to capture the rest of the two regions.

The US and UK earlier claimed Mr Putin’s decision to recognise the regions was a breach of international law.

There are already approximately 190,000 Russian troops along the Ukrainian border.

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Ukrainian studies expert Emeritus Professor Marko Pavlyshyn told Neil Breen the two regions have been under de facto Russian military control since 2014.

“They declared their independence but in fact, that independence has been secured by Russian troops (whose presence has never been recognised by Russia itself), by volunteers and of course by some locals who have advantage of the powerful status they have in a pseudo-independent statelet.

“They are now in the situation of having been, at least from the Russian perspective, legalised.

“This means Russia is able to deploy military officially, it’s able to arm these two statelets … from which further, aggressive actions against Ukraine can be launched.”

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