‘Pro-Moscow force out of our control’

Madrid: Russia said on Wednesday that it has no authority over pro-Moscow forces that have taken de-facto control of Ukraine’s majority Russian Crimean Peninsula.

A day after US President Barack Obama said Russia was “not fooling anybody” over its role in Ukraine, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov insisted the armed troops in Crimea were not taking orders from the Kremlin.

Mr Lavrov called for all sides to respect the letter of the law, treaties and the Ukrainian constitution so as to allow calm to be restored through diplomatic channels.