Russia has vetoed a Western backed resolution in the UN Security Council emergency session condemning the Crimea referendum on whether the region should seek annexation with Moscow.
The draft resolution said the referendum to be put to vote today would have no validity.

It got 13 votes in the 15-member council, but it was rejected when permanent member Russia exercised its veto. China abstained from voting, isolating Moscow on the Ukraine crisis.
The UN Security Council emergency meeting was called at Washington's request.

Meanwhile, Russian forces backed by helicopter gunships and armoured vehicles on Saturday took control of a village near the border with Crimea.

Ukrainian officials said that the action by Russian forces appeared to be the first move outside Crimea, where Russian forces have been in effective control since last month.

Gunmen stormed into a
hotel in the Crimean regional capital Simferopol, just ahead of a tension ridden referendum on the Black Sea peninsula seeking Crimea to leave Ukraine and join Russia.

An agency report quoting a media crew say that around 30 armed men barged into Hotel Moscow, most of them wielding Kalashnikov assault rifles.
Many journalists covering the referendum are staying at the hotel. gunmen smashed camera of a TV journalist and threatened many others.