Which is the justification Putin has been looking for to invade.

Update to this story.

(Reuters) – Pro-Moscow protesters occupying a government building in eastern Ukraine declared the creation of a separatist republic on Monday, in a move Kiev described as part of a plan to justify a Russian invasion to dismember the country.

Kiev said the seizures of state buildings in three cities in eastern Ukraine’s mainly Russian speaking industrial heartland were a replay of events in Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula Moscow annexed after its troops occupied it last month.

“An anti-Ukrainian plan is being put into operation … under which foreign troops will cross the border and seize the territory of the country,” Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk told a cabinet meeting in Kiev. “We will not allow this.”

Pro-Russian protesters seized official buildings in the eastern cities of Kharkiv, Luhansk and Donetsk on Sunday night, demanding that referendums be held on whether to join Russia like the one that preceded Moscow’s takeover of Crimea.

Police said they cleared the protesters from the building in Kharkiv, but in Luhansk the demonstrators had seized weapons.