Ukraine’s interim government has got more than a crashing economy and a scarred capital to deal with.  Demonstrations in the pro-Russian east are growing more heated, and Russian president Vladimir Putin put 150,000 troops near the Ukrainian border on alert to test their combat readiness.

Russia was “carefully watching what is happening in Crimea,” said Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, who said that the exercise will start Friday and last four days, and will involve elements of the Russian navy and air force. Russia’s Black Sea naval fleet is at a leased base in Sevastopol’s deep-water harbor.

The sabre-rattling has two goals: to send a message to the anti-Moscow crowd in Kiev; and to reassure ethnic Russians in Ukraine’s east, in places such as Crimea, that they have not been forgotten.

In Sevastopol, thousands of pro-Russian demonstrators rallied around their new mayor who is not recognized by the interim government in Kiev.  Valeriy Bespalko is a Russian citizen with a Russian passport, who told the crowd, “We have our Russian language, Russian heroes and Russian culture.”

But not too far away in the capital of Ukraine's Crimea region, Simferopol, pro-Russian demonstrators clashed with Muslim Tatars – Russian-speakers who were banished by Stalin and returned to the area in the past few decades – who are loyal to Kiev, even though some of the parties in Kiev are anti-Muslim and have already repealed the dual-language law that protect Russian-speakers in the east.