The head of Russia's House of Parliament is on the wires saying:
- Putin ask permission to use troops abroad
Meanwhile Russia's deputy defense minister Pankov tells Russia's upper house of parliament that:
- Russia has been left no choice
- Ask upper house of parliament to approve deployment of Russian troops in DonBass
- We need to take these people under our protection
- Says that Ukraine has created a 60,000 strong group of forces on the DPR/LPR borders
- Russia will protect territorial integrity of two breakaway Ukrainian regions and counter aggression
Russian Pres. Putin signs ratification of treaties with Ukrainian breakaway republics.
The Russian senior lawmaker Klishas tells upper house of parliament that Putin will decide on a number of troops, timing, their tasks if the request is approved.
The headlines has seen some down ticks in US stocks with the
- NASDAQ index down -24 points -0.18% at 13423.
- The Dow industrial average down -211 points -0.61% at 33870.82.
- The S&P is down -8.82 points -0.19% 4340.20
Pres. Biden is to deliver marks on Russia and Ukraine at 2 PM ET/1900 GMT