MOSCOW — President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia demanded Ukraine recognize Russia’s claim to Crimea and relinquish its advanced weapons, declaring what sounded like an ultimatum minutes after Russian state television showed Parliament authorizing the use of military force abroad. The cascade of developments in Moscow on Tuesday evening offered the clearest signs yet that Mr. Putin was moving toward mounting a military operation against Ukraine. The goals of such an operation remained uncertain. But in setting out his demands on Tuesday, Mr. Putin made it clear that he was seeking to force a drastic political shift in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, as well as to win control of a large area of the country’s east.Mr. Putin added that he had not decided to send troops into Ukraine “right at this moment.” But asked whether one could resolve issues by force and “remain on the side of the good,” Mr. Putin made it clear he saw military action as a morally defensible course.“Why do you think that the good must always be powerless?” Mr. Putin said. “I don’t believe so. I think that the good implies the ability to protect oneself. We will proceed based on this.” Mr. Putin further laid the foundation for military conflict by declaring that Russia would recognize the sovereignty of the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics over the full territory that they claim. That includes a large area of eastern Ukraine that is currently controlled by the Ukrainian government, and includes several cities like Mariupol and Kramatorsk. “We expect — and I want to emphasize this — that all contentious issues will be resolved in negotiations between today’s Kyiv authorities and the leadership of these republics,” Mr. Putin said. “Unfortunately, at this point in time, we understand that this is impossible because the hostilities there are still ongoing and, moreover, are tending to escalate.”Mr. Putin signed decrees on Monday recognizing the separatist republics. But until Mr. Putin’s remarks Tuesday evening, it was not clear over what territory he would recognize their sovereignty.Kyiv has refused to recognize or negotiate directly with the separatist authorities, characterizing them as Kremlin puppets.In his news conference, Mr. Putin laid out a series of additional demands to Kyiv that, he said, the government must fulfill to resolve the situation “in a long-term, historical perspective.” He said Ukraine must recognize the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, as Russian territory; declare that it will never join the NATO alliance and maintain “neutrality”; and give up all the weaponry that the United States and other Western countries have delivered to it in recent years. “The most important point is a known degree of demilitarization of Ukraine today,” Mr. Putin said. “This is the only objectively controllable factor that can be observed and reacted to.”Just before state television aired Mr. Putin’s news conference, it showed Russia’s upper house of Parliament approving a request from Mr. Putin to use military force abroad that had been made public only minutes earlier. A deputy defense minister, Nikolai Pankov, told the assembly that Ukraine had gathered 60,000 troops to attack the Russia-backed separatist enclaves in the country’s east — a step that Ukraine denies having any plans to take.“Negotiations have reached a dead end,” Mr. Pankov said in a televised speech. “The Ukrainian leadership has taken the path of violence and bloodshed.”Just after showing the vote, state television cut to the Kremlin, where Mr. Putin was shown holding an unscheduled news conference. He repeated his past, unfounded claims that Ukraine was carrying out a “genocide” of Russian speakers in eastern Ukraine. Asked about the potential use of force, Mr. Putin responded, “I didn’t say that the troops will go there right at this moment.”Two European officials have said that Russia has already sent troops into the area, but Russia has denied having done so.Mr. Putin signed a decree on Monday ordering Russia’s military to perform “peacekeeping functions” in the separatist territories, the same day that he recognized them as independent nations. But as of Monday evening in Moscow, the Russian Defense Ministry had not said it was deploying troops to the territories.Valentina Matviyenko, the chairwoman of the upper house house of Parliament, said the use of military force was being approved to “stop this bloody civil war,” according to the Interfax news agency.