Mediaboss Marketing

Ukraine says one of its soldiers has been killed in Crimea in the first case of bloodshed since Russian troops and pro-Kremlin militia seized the rebel peninsula almost three weeks ago.

Regional defence ministry spokesman Vladislav Seleznyov said the soldier had died on Tuesday after being shot in the neck when a group of gunmen stormed a Ukrainian military base in the northeast of Crimea's main city of Simferopol.

Seleznyov did not specify whether the base was stormed by Russian soldiers or pro-Kremlin militia who also patrol the peninsula.

The spokeman said another soldier was wounded in the attack.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday signed a treaty claiming the Black Sea region of Crimea as Russian territory, setting of a firestorm of condemnation from Kiev and the West.

Russian forces had seized the peninsula Crimea at the beginning of March after the toppling last month of the pro-Kremlin regime in Ukraine and the rise to power of a new Western-backed administration that is seeking closer ties with the European Union.

Ukraine's Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk told an emergency government session in Kiev that his country's conflict with Russia was entering a "military stage".

"The conflict is shifting from a political to a military stage," Yatsenyuk told a nationally televised meeting that was also attended by acting president Oleksandr Turchuynov.

"Russian soldiers have started shooting at Ukrainian military servicemen, and that is a war crime."

Ukraine's navy chief Sergiy Gayduk said that an officer had been shot and injured in the leg "during an attack against a base in Simferopol".

The rest is here:

Ukraine says officer killed at Crimean base