Cossacks rally for Crimea's ethnic Russians

Russian cossacks rally near the Ukranian border.

A show of solidarity with ethnic Russians in neighboring Crimea.

We're ready to help, they say, if Crimea wants to rejoin Russia, which gifted the area to Ukraine in the 1950's.

(SOUNDBITE) (Russian) COSSACK GENNADY CHERNENKO, SAYING:

"Crimea and eastern Ukraine were all before a part of our cossack territory. If they want to join us we will support and help them."

(SOUNDBITE) (Russian) COSSACK VALENTIN GLAZATOV, SAYING:

"Our brotherly people are there, our brothers, Russians, Russian-speaking population, something like three million people."

Russian President Vladimir Putin watched war games on Monday designed to test the combat-readiness of his troops.

His forces have seized control of the Crimean peninsula, where Moscow maintains its Black Sea Fleet, and now threaten to invade Ukraine.

Russia says it needs to protect Russian speakers in Crimea from what it says is a new nationalist