-- 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 Muzychkoearlier 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
RFE/RL feature on Crimean Tatars and how their 1944 experience of genocidal deportation shapes their worries about what is happening on the peninsula now.
Another live feed from Belbak airbase is working, for now:
Never mind. This appears to be old footage. Our mistake...
16:3822.3.2014
ITAR-TASS is reporting that Ukrainian border guards have unilaterally closed the exits to and entry from the Ukrainian mainland. Cites an unidentified Kremlin representative in Crimea. No other corroboration.
16:3822.3.2014
Veteran CIS watcher Andrew Wilson of the European Council on Foreign Relations has a piece on foreignaffairs.com explaining how Putin gave up his dream of a Eurasian Union in taking Crimea. Now, Wilson argues, even Belarus wants out:
"Putin’s short-term victory is already coming at the expense of his most cherished long-term strategy -- the creation of a Eurasian Union, a trade union linking Russia and its closest neighbors. In other words, as the invasion expands Russian territory, it will diminish Russian influence in the very places he’d like to increase it. One need only look to Belarus, which is already beginning to hedge against its alliance with Moscow, to see why."
16:4722.3.2014
There it is - Russian Foreign Ministry says OSCE mission to Ukraine (but not Crimea) shows it accepts "new realities" http://t.co/POoTrV79ZL
