The Other Shoe ...

... has been dropped by Putin.

MOSCOW — Several hundred pro-Russian demonstrators who have seized government buildings in the city of Donetsk, in eastern Ukraine, urged President Vladimir V. Putin on Monday to send troops to the region as a peacekeeping force, and they demanded a referendum on seceding from Ukraine and joining Russia.

The renewed unrest in eastern Ukraine, which flared on Sunday with coordinated demonstrations by thousands of pro-Russian protesters in Donetsk, Kharkiv and Luhansk, reignited fears in Kiev and the West about Russian military action a little more than a month after Russian forces occupied Crimea. The Kremlin annexed Crimea after a referendum there last month.

The events in the east were unfolding just hours after a Ukrainian military officer was shot and killed in Crimea in a confrontation with Russian troops.

It sure looks like Vlad is readying things for another bite.

UPDATE: More detail in this BBC story.

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