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Ukraine's acting Foreign Minister Andriy Deshchytsya speaks to the UN General Assembly on March 27.
Ukraine's acting Foreign Minister Andriy Deshchytsya speaks to the UN General Assembly on March 27.
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Live Blog: UN Backs Ukraine Integrity

Final Summary For March 27

-- The UN General Assembly has passed a resolution that affirms Ukraine's territorial integrity.

-- The IMF has announced "a staff-level agreement" with Kyiv on assistance of $14 billion-$18 billion in conjunction with a reform program that will "unlock" up to $27 billion over the next two years, pending final approval next month. Tthe U.S. Congress has also passed an aid bill for Ukraine.

-- Ex-PM Yulia Tymoshenko has announced plans to run for president.

-- Members of the Right Sector have been holding a demonstration outside the Ukrainian parliament building to vent their anger at the killing of prominent member Oleksander Muzychko earlier in the week.

-- Six Ukrainian military officers detained by pro-Russian troops in Crimea have been released, including Colonel Yuliy Mamchur, but five others are still being held captive.

-- Anonymous sources quoted by CNN say U.S. intelligence "concludes it is more likely than previously thought that Russian forces will enter eastern Ukraine."

-- U.S. President Barack Obama, in the keynote speech of his visit to Europe, chided Russia for its use of "brute force" in Ukraine and vowed that a determined alliance of the United States and Europe will prevail over time.


*NOTE: Times are stated according to local time in Kyiv
20:20 10.3.2014

20:13 10.3.2014
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's spokesman Stephane Dujarric reading a statement on Ukraine from Ban today in New York.
"Recent events in Crimea in particular have only served to deepen the crisis. As tensions and mistrust are growing, I urge all sides to refrain from hasty actions and provocative rhetoric. The international community must help the key actors to calm the situation and work toward a durable and fair political solution. A further deterioration of the situation would have serious repercussions for the people of Ukraine, the region, and the global community."

20:10 10.3.2014

19:45 10.3.2014

18:54 10.3.2014
NATO will start flying AWACS reconnaissance missions over Poland and Romania as part of the alliance's efforts to monitor events in Ukraine. NATO ambassadors on Monday endorsed the proposal from the alliance's top military commander, U.S. Air Force General Philip Breedlove. A NATO official said the flights would "enhance the alliance's situational awareness." The official made clear all the flights "will take place solely over alliance territory."

18:52 10.3.2014
The U.S. State Department says Washington wants to see proof that Russia is prepared to engage on U.S. diplomatic proposals aimed to resolve the crisis in Ukraine. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said that Secretary of State John Kerry had laid out a number of ideas to his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov and is prepared to take part in further talks "if and when we see concrete evidence that Russia is prepared to engage on these proposals." Psaki said Kerry has yet to receive any response.

18:30 10.3.2014

18:29 10.3.2014
Another image of the "self-defense" recruits taking their oath.

18:27 10.3.2014

18:11 10.3.2014
You can listen here to "New Yorker" editor David Remnick's new commentary on Vladimir Putin, Russian nationalism, and whether Crimea might be the former KGB agent-cum-president's undoing, "Putin's Pique." Here's a taste of it:

[I]t may be that [Russian President Vladimir Putin's] adventure in Crimea—and not the American Embassy in Moscow—will undo him. Last month, a Kremlin-sponsored poll showed that seventy-three per cent of Russians opposed interfering in the political confrontations in Kiev. The Kremlin has proved since that it has the means, and the media, to gin up support for Putin’s folly—but that won’t last indefinitely.

In other words, Putin risks alienating himself not only from the West and Ukraine, to say nothing of the global economy he dearly wants to join, but from Russia itself. His dreams of staying in office until 2024, of being the most formidable state-builder in Russian history since Peter the Great, may yet founder on the peninsula of Crimea.

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