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Ukraine seeks US help, Putin talks tough

Ukraine has sought urgent Western backing after Russian President Vladimir Putin insisted that Crimea had the right to join his country even while hinting at a readiness for dialogue.

The pro-European team in Kiev that rode the wave of three months of deadly protests to topple a Kremlin-backed regime is running against the clock to preserve the territorial integrity of the culturally splintered nation of 46 million.

The self-declared leadership on the predominantly ethnic Russian peninsula of Crimea has proclaimed independence from Kiev and set a March 16 referendum on switching over to Kremlin rule.

The decision has been condemned by Western powers who are also furious at Moscow's seizure of Crimea in a lightning but bloodless operation that began days after the February 22 fall and subsequent escape to Russia of president Viktor Yanukovych.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel - whose cautious approach to imposing sanctions on Russia has clashed with the more hawkish positions of Eastern European nations and the United States - bluntly told Putin on Sunday that the Crimean referendum was 'illegal'.

The most explosive East-West crisis since the Cold War was stoked further when the Kremlin said Putin told both Merkel and British Prime Minister David Cameron that he fully recognised the actions of the Crimean leaders - in power since an end of February seizure of the local parliament and government by pro-Kremlin gunmen.

The Kremlin said Putin stressed 'the steps undertaken by the legitimate authorities of Crimea are based on the norms of international law' - a comment hinting strongly that the Kremlin was ready to annex Crimea after handing the peninsula as a 'gift' to Ukraine when it was a part of the Soviet empire in 1954.

But Merkel's office also said Putin had promised to discuss with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Monday the creation of an 'international contact group' on Ukraine that he had resisted in the past.

Germany is pushing the group's creation as a way of avoiding an all-out war breaking out on the eastern edge of Europe that would see Ukraine call for Western help against its nuclear-armed neighbour.

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Ukraine seeks US help, Putin talks tough