BREAKING:
President Vladimir Putin has said Russia poses "no threat to anyone" and does not intend "to get involved in any geopolitical games or intrigues."
He was speaking on November 26 at a meeting with military chiefs in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.
Putin said Russia would "securely safeguard" its sovereignty and integrity and that of its allies.
The Russian president also drew "special attention to the need for a comprehensive approach and the unification of efforts of all government bodies in tackling tasks in the sphere of defense."
Putin's comments come as the conflict in Ukraine, where government forces have been battling pro-Russian separatists since April, has brought ties between Moscow and the West to post-Cold War lows.
Kyiv and the West accuse Russia of directly supporting the rebels, which Moscow denies.
Russian also annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in March.
Moscow says it's unlikely to send peacekeepers to Ukraine:
Russia’s envoy to the United Nations has voiced skepticism about a request from pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine for a UN peacekeeping force.
Asked about the appeal, Vitaly Churkin said on November 26, "I think it's unlikely."
AFP news agency quoted a senior European diplomat as saying there was no enthusiasm for mounting a peace operation in eastern Ukraine, where government forces have been battling rebels since April.
On November 25, leaders of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic called for the intervention of a UN peacekeeping force that included Russians.
The Ukrainian government suggested it was a pretext to invite Russian troops, who Kyiv and the West say are already covertly taking part in the conflict, onto its territory. (AFP, TASS)
Turkey has professed itself the steadfast defender of the Crimean Tatars’ minority rights, but, so far, that mission has not interfered with its interest in trade with Russia, its largest export-import partner.
The declarations of official concern continue, however. On a November 10 visit to Kyiv, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Çavuşoğlu announced plans to send an unofficial monitoring mission to Crimea to investigate claims of human rights violations against the ethnic Crimean Tatar population.
The move is Ankara’s first concrete step to support the Crimean Tatars, who claim they have been repressed and silenced by the local, de-facto pro-Russian authorities in the months since Russia’s March annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula.
The entire Crimean Tatar population was deported under Soviet leader Josef Stalin to the steppes of Central Asia in 1944; as many as half perished during the arduous journey. About 300,000 returned to resettle in Crimea after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, and most opposed Russia’s move to absorb the peninsula this spring.
Their opposition has not been tolerated. At least seven Crimean Tatar activists have “been forcibly disappeared or have gone missing” since May, Human Rights Watch said in an October report. Two other Crimean Tatars without apparent political ties have also gone missing and one was later found hanged, “contributing to the atmosphere of fear and hostility in Crimea for anyone who is pro-Ukraine, including Crimean Tatars,” the report said.
Mubeyyin Batu Altan, founder of the New York-based Crimean Tatar Research and Information Center, said that while the news of the Turkish fact-finding mission is welcome, many in the Crimean Tatar community feel abandoned because Turkey, which has long styled itself as the defender of the Tatar people, has not done more.
“We thought that Turkey would be a stronger supporter of the Crimean Tatars, but they do not want to jeopardize their billions and billions of dollars of business with Russia and they are not going to jeopardize this business because of a handful of Crimean Tatars,” Altan said. “And that is disappointing for us.”
This ends our live-blogging for November 26. Be sure to check back tomorrow for our continuing coverage.