Here is a Reuters video issued by our multimedia department of Vladimir Putin's comments today, comparing Crimea's sigificance for Russians to how Jews and Muslims feel about Jerusalem's Temple Mount:
Some info from Basel courtesy of RFE/RL's news desk:
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin on December 4 strongly criticized what he called “Russian aggression” in eastern Ukraine, describing an often violated cease-fire deal as a “hybrid cease-fire" for a "hybrid war."
Speaking in Basel, Switzerland at a gathering of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Klimkin said: "What we need is a real bilateral cease-fire."
Klimkin said fighting in eastern Ukraine is "not a Ukrainian crisis. It is not an OSCE crisis. It is about Russian aggression."
The OSCE is monitoring a September 5 cease-fire deal for eastern Ukraine that is violated daily, particularly around the airport in the rebel-held city of Donetsk.
A new cease-fire deal was agreed on December 1 for Donetsk's airport, but fighting continues there.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov were scheduled to meet in Basel later today (December 4).
(Reuters, AP, AFP, dpa)