In Kiev such people were referred to as protestors whilst in Crimea they are referred to as armed gunmen.

Spin, spin , spin.....................

.... These raised the Russian flag. There's some spin going on alright....

you shouldn't have too much difficulty in finding a picture of the protesters in Kiev breaking into government building waving a Ukraine flag whilst doing so.

whose avatar is of a mass-murdering racist on behalf of an imperialist USSR.

I know the poster in question tends to be, ummm.... , pro-Kremlin, but there you go.

Maxim, a pro-Russian activist who refused to give his last name, told the Associated Press that he and other activists had been camping out overnight outside the local parliament in Crimea’s regional capital, Simferopol, when heavily armed men wearing flak jackets, and holding rocket-propelled grenade launchers and sniper rifles took over the building. He said:

Our activists were sitting there all night calmly, building the barricades. At 5 o’clock unknown men turned up and went to the building. They got into the courtyard and put everyone on the ground.

They were asking who we were. When we said we stand for the Russian language and Russia, they said: ‘Don’t be afraid, we’re with you.’ Then they began to storm the building bringing down the doors.

They didn’t look like volunteers or amateurs, they were professionals. This was clearly a well-organised operation. They did not allow anyone to come near. They seized the building, drove out the police, there were about six police officers inside.

Who are they? Nobody knows. It’s about 50-60 people, fully armed.

We will have all the developments as they happen

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/27/ukraine-pro-russian-gunmen-seize-crimea-parliament-live-updates

Fears of a major regional conflict in Crimea pitting Russia against the west have intensified after unknown pro-Russian gunmen seized fficials. the government and parliament building in a well co-ordinated military operation.

According to witnesses, the men dressed in fatigues stormed Crimea's regional administrative complex in Simferopol at 5am on Thursday. They hoisted a Russian flag above the parliament building. About 120 men were holed up inside, armed with heavy weapons including rocket-propelled grenades and sniper rifles, witnesses said.

They threw a flash grenade in response to a journalist's questions. Calls to region's legislature rang unanswered, and its website was down.

It was unclear if the men were members of a pro-Russian self-defence militia formed in the aftermath of Ukraine's revolution or undercover Russian soldiers.

Speaking in Kiev, the former head of the Crimean parliament, Serhiy Kunitsyn, described the men as "professionally trained". He said he had been on the phone to Crimea "all night". The gunmen were heavily armed, he said, with enough weaponry to defend the complex "for a month".

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/27/crimean-parliament-seized-by-unknown-pro-russian-gunmen


“Nobody knows who, what or why,” said a resident who identified himself only as Gennady and who voiced alarm that the armed action could set off a spiral of violence in a region riven by political, ethnic and religious differences.

The leader of a group called the Russian Movement for Crimea read out Mr. Yanukovych’s reported statement declaring himself to be the legitimate president. “We agree, we agree,” the crowd shouted. One man shouted through a bullhorn: “We are not separatists. Russia, Ukraine and Belarus are one country.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/28/world/europe/crimea-ukraine.html?hpw&rref=world