Live Blog: Ukraine In Crisis (Archive)

"Unfortunately, I cannot confirm that Russia is withdrawing its troops. This is not what we are seeing. And this massive military build-up can in no way contribute to a de-escalation of the situation, a de-escalation that we all want to see."

Rasmussen also said Russia had undermined the principles on which a NATO-Russia partnership had been built, and that as a result there could be no more "business as usual."

He was speaking ahead of a NATO foreign ministers' meeting to discuss Ukraine.

The NATO meeting in Brussels is the first since Russia's military occupation and annexation of Ukraine's Crimea region.

Russia in the past month massed tens of thousands of troops on its border with Ukraine, raising concerns that after annexing Crimea it might invade other parts of Ukraine.

On Monday, the Russian Defense Ministry said it was withdrawing a battalion that had ended drills near the border.

The Verkhovna Rada voted 235 to 0 on Tuesday to approve holding a series of military exercises with NATO countries.

The drills would be conducted in southern and western Ukraine at some point between May and November.

Meanwhile, Russia's Federation Council voted Tuesday to terminate agreements with Ukraine on the Black Sea Fleet.

The Council voted unanimously Tuesday to annul the agreements. On Monday, Russia's lower house of parliament, the State Duma also unanimously approved the bill.

In 2010, Russia and Ukraine agreed to extend the lease of the fleet's base in the city of Sevastopol until 2042, under a deal that included an annual rent of $98 million and price discounts for Russian natural gas imports to Ukraine.

The German, French, and Polish foreign ministers held talks in Germany on the crisis in Ukraine ahead of a NATO foreign ministerial meeting.

The meeting on Tuesday in Weimar is an attempt by Berlin to revive the Weimar Triangle, a grouping initiated after the collapse of communism in 1991.

The crisis surrounding antigovernment protests in Ukraine and Russia's seizure of the Crimean Peninsula has reinvigorated the group.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and his French and Polish counterparts, Laurent Fabius and Radoslaw Sikorski, respectively, forged a deal in Kyiv in February between then-President Viktor Yanukovych and opposition leaders that ended days of deadly violence.

The Weimar Triangle ministers said in a joint statement Tuesday that NATO must "reassure the security of our allies."

Russia's State Duma is set to start debates on granting expedited citizenship to foreigners who are native Russian speakers. The amendments to the law on citizenship are scheduled to be discussed in their first reading on Tuesday. The draft amendments propose that native Russian speakers, regardless of their ethnicity, whose ancestors resided in Russia’s territories, as well as in the Russian Empire and in the Soviet Union, can obtained citizenship in a simplified way on the condition the applicants move to Russia for permanent residence and renounce citizenship of other countries. The applicants found by the Federal Migration Service commissions as native Russian speakers will become Russian citizens in three months avoiding mandatory staying in Russia for at least five years in order to be legitimate for the citizenship.