Nervously looking out through their bases’ perimeter wire, Ukrainian troops stationed in Privolnoye in Crimea are under siege from unidentified forces.

Surrounded by hundreds of men with trucks bearing Russian number plates and well-equipped with military small arms and heavier weapons, not a shot has been fired as of now.

As pro-Russian forces take over more and more of Crimea, the Ukrainian army has mobilised its reserves, and queues of people are forming to enlist. Ukraine has withdrawn its coastguards from Crimea and moved naval units to Odessa.

Simferopol, Crimea’s regional capital, is now completely in the control of paramilitaries and Russian armed forces, which moved into the city in a column of vehicles from Russia’s naval base in Sevastopol, a clear violation of the 1994 Budapest agreement signed by Russia, Ukraine, Britain and the US forbidding Russian military deployments on Ukrainian soil.