Putin Hopes No Need To Send Troops Into Ukraine

MOSCOW (AP) — Putin says he hopes he won't have to send Russian troops into Ukraine, saying he's hopeful there will be a political and diplomatic solution to the crisis.

Putin is denying that Russia special forces are stirring unrest in eastern Ukraine.

But he's admitting for the first time that troops in unmarked uniforms who had overtaken Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula before its annexation by Moscow were Russian soldiers.