Putin orders crackdown on NGOs

Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered a crackdown on "destructive" non-government organizations (NGOs), saying such groups were behind the mass protests that brought down Ukraine's government. Moscow has repeatedly accused the new authorities in Kiev and the protesters who toppled pro-Moscow president Viktor Yanukovych of being extremists, nationalists and even "Nazis".On Monday Putin told senior officials at Russia's FSB security service, the successor to the KGB, that "nationalist and neo-Nazi structures and fighters" in Ukraine had been financed from abroad through non-government organizations, according to AFP.