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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
15:32 11.3.2014
UPDATE: Rim Gilfanov, director of RFE/RL's Tatar-Bashkir Service, reports that Jemilev will go to Moscow, will meet with former president of Tatarstan Mintimir Shaimiyev, and may meet with Putin. The Crimean Mejlis says his visit has been organized in coordination with the Ukrainian government.

15:27 11.3.2014


Mustafa Jemilev, a people's deputy of Ukraine and the former head of the Crimean Tatar Mejlis has reportedly been invited to Moscow for talks with Vladimir Putin on the situation in Crimea.

Jemliev has yet to RSVP, but has suggested that if he goes, "they will not discuss the withdrawal of Russian troops, so they're going to offer something instead" -- possibly special rights and protection for Crimean Tatars should the peninsula succeed in its bid for independence and eventual annexation by Russia.

Russia is looking to find common ground with Crimean Tatars, who hold a longstanding grudge against Moscow for the mass deportation of Tatars from the peninsula in 1944. The Mejlis says it will not recognize the March 16 referendum, and has called on all residents of Crimea, regardless of ethnicity, to boycott the vote. Tatars make up 12 percent of the population of Crimea.

14:51 11.3.2014
BBC Ukraine has reported that former Yanukovych adviser Hanna Herman was not impressed by today's press conference by her former boss.

"He should have been calming people down by blocking the illegal [Crimean independence] referendum," she said. "That would have been the position of a man who is ready to fight body and soul for the country. Anything else looks pathetic."

14:43 11.3.2014
Our Belarus Service is reporting that police in Minsk have detained two Belarusian activists for holding a pro-Ukrainian rally in front of the Russian Embassy.

Dzmitry Karashkou and Stanislau Bulay were protesting Russia's military occupation of Ukraine's Autonomous Republic of Crimea on Tuesday.

They held posters saying, "Putin is the enemy of Ukraine and Russia!" and "Putin, hands off Ukraine, no to war!"

Karashkou managed to tell his friends by phone that he was being taken to the police directorate in Minsk's Central District.

Calls placed to his phone since then go unanswered.

14:42 11.3.2014

"Ukrainska Pravda" reporter translating Viktor Yanukovych's presser -- into Ukrainian.

14:35 11.3.2014
The UN is in Kharkiv:
UN Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights Ivan Simonovic has met with local authorities in Ukraine's eastern city of Kharkiv.

A UN statement said Simonovic discussed "possible human rights-related measures that could help deescalate tensions in Ukraine" and raised with the authorities allegations of human rights violations.

Simonovic was also scheduled to hold talks with both pro-Russian and pro-Ukrainian civil society representatives.

The statement said Simonovic will go to Crimea Wednesday and to Lviv on Thursday. He is scheduled to hold a news conference Friday in Kyiv.

14:35 11.3.2014

14:28 11.3.2014
From the wires. Ukraine is further mobilizing its reserves:

Ukraine's acting President Oleksandr Turchynov has called for the formation of a national guard and for the mobilization of reserves and volunteers into the country's armed forces.

Turchynov asked parliament to approve a decision to turn the country's Interior Ministry troops into a National Guard "to defend the country and citizens against any criminals, against external and internal aggression."

Turchynov said that the mobilization will include those who have previously served in the military, as well as volunteers.

Turchynov said Ukraine had as few as 6,000 combat-ready infantry out of a nominal force of 41,000. Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk, meanwhile, said a 1994 agreement under which Ukraine agreed to give up its Soviet nuclear weapons obliges Western powers to defend Ukraine's sovereignty.

14:25 11.3.2014
In the Czech Republic, creative anti-Russia dissent continues in the city of Liberec, where Dekomunizace, an anticommunist watchdog group, today unfurled a giant banner from atop the town hall that features a portrait of Russian President Vladimir Putin sporting a Hitler mustache and wearing a Stalin-style overcoat. "Everyone can choose to see who they want," said Martin Fryc, one of the activists behind the project.

City officials are permitting the banner to remain in place through the day, as a sign of support for Ukraine.

Dekomunizace raised a similar portrait of Putin in Prague in October 2013, to protest the political aspirations of the Czech Communist Party ahead of parliamentary polls.

14:23 11.3.2014
A series of tweets from Ukrainian singer and Maidan stalwart Ruslana Lyzhychko:

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