Your trusted source

International monitors will be sent to Ukraine, after Russian diplomats dropped their objections, the BBC reported.

European security organisation, the OSCE, will send advance teams within 24 hours to areas including the violence-hit south-eastern areas.

But the 100-strong monitoring team is not expected to go to Crimea.

The 57-member Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe reached a deal on Friday evening.

The Vienna-based group said that initially 100 civilian observers would deploy for six months in nine regions of Ukraine.

Up to 400 extra personnel could be deployed if necessary.

The areas the monitors are due to visit include Odessa, Donetsk, Dnepropetrovsk, and Luhansk, which have been recently rocked by clashes between pro-Ukrainian and pro-Russian activists.

"The decision itself calls for monitors to be deployed within 24 hours," said Daniel Baer, the US ambassador to the OSCE.

The US said in a statement that "it is clear that with the adoption of this decision this mission has a mandate to work in Crimea and in all other parts of Ukraine."

But Russian envoy Andrey Kelin responded by saying that Crimea had now become part of Russia and therefore the mission had "no mandate" to go there.