Accessibility links

Breaking News
Russian President Vladimir Putin holds a news conference at his country residence of Novo-Ogaryova outside Moscow on March 4.
Russian President Vladimir Putin holds a news conference at his country residence of Novo-Ogaryova outside Moscow on March 4.

Live Blog: Ukraine On The Brink

Summary

-- U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Kyiv as U.S. officials announced Washington is preparing a $1 billion aid package for Ukraine.

-- Speaking at a press conference at his residence, Russian President Vladimir Putin has called the change of government in Ukraine an "unconstitutional overthrow and an armed seizure of power."

-- Putin also said there are no considerations to annex Crimea and no intentions to provoke separatist sentiment. He said it is up to the citizens of Crimea to determine their own future.

-- In Crimea, there are standoffs between Russian and Ukrainian troops in their bases, with conflicting reports of ultimatums given to Ukrainian troops to surrender that come and pass.

-- Russian Ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin has said that Ukraine's ousted President Viktor Yanukovych sent a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin requesting that he use the Russian military to restore law and order in his country.

-- In eastern Ukraine, pro-Russian demonstrators have occupied part of the regional government building in the city of Donetsk. Meanwhile, a few hundred pro-Russian activists tried but failed to force their way into the regional administration building in the southern city of Odesa.

NOTE: Live blog updates are listed according to local time in Kyiv

-- Glenn Kates / Luke Allnutt / Coilin O'Connor / Dan Wisniewski
16:00 19.2.2014
The Ukrainian Ministry of the Interior has just published a list of the names of servicemen it says have been killed in the Kyiv violence (in Ukrainian).
16:03 19.2.2014
16:36 19.2.2014
17:00 19.2.2014
This is in from the news wires:

The French, German, and Polish foreign ministers will travel to Kyiv, ahead of an emergency meeting of the European Union to discuss sanctions against Ukrainians.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius announced the visit at a joint press conference with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Paris today.

EU foreign ministers are scheduled to meet in Brussels tomorrow to discuss whether to impose sanctions on Ukraine following the latest deadly violence.
17:15 19.2.2014
Meanwhile, AFP and Interfax are reporting that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has called on the European Union to pressure Ukrainian opposition leaders to cooperate with authorities to end the crisis convulsing Ukraine.

A Russian Foreign Ministry statement said Lavrov called on EU officials "to use their close and daily contacts with the opposition to urge them to cooperate with the Ukrainian leadership."

The statement said Lavrov had spoken by phone with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

Russia has previously accused the EU and the United States of meddling in the Ukrainian crisis on the side of the opposition.

Moscow, a leading ally of the Ukrainian government, has also accused the opposition of using violence to forcibly oust the government.
17:34 19.2.2014
Dmytro Shurkhalo from RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service has been talking to our Central Newsroom about the situation on the ground in Kyiv. Here are a few of the things he had to say:

On how traffic and transportation have been affected by the violence, in Kyiv and beyond:

"All three Kyiv metro lines remain shut down since yesterday afternoon. I actually talked to native Kyiv residents who say that the metro service has never before been closed for the period of 24 hours since the time when the metro in Kyiv started running."

"As far as I know, railway traffic coming from the west [of Ukraine] is blocked. Vehicle traffic from the west also faces difficulties -- there are check points installed on the outskirts of Kyiv to prevent cars from the west from reaching the city. I cannot say if the roads from the East have been blocked as well, but many bus lines and private cars cannot reach Kyiv -- I personally know people who could not set out for Kyiv from the Poltava region."

"In downtown Kyiv, in the Khreshchatyk district, everything is shut down -- almost all agencies, offices, public catering, cafes, and restaurants are closed. Life seems to be more normal, almost as if nothing was going on, the further from the center one goes."

On the fires burning on Kyiv's Independence Square:

"A new expression has been created -- 'fire barricades'. In order to prevent the police from storming the [Independence Square occupied by demonstrators] people -- protesters -- keep putting tires on fire, which makes an improvised firewall between the protesters and [Interior Ministry] troops. [The troops] are dousing the tires with water cannon but protesters are faster at keeping the fire burning and the water cannons are not coping."
17:56 19.2.2014
Security analyst, Mark Galeotti, a professor at New York University who is also a co-host of RFE/RL's Power Vertical podcast, has been writing about what the Ukrainian authorities' "antiterrorist" operation might mean in practice. He suggests that it could effectively involve a "low level form of martial law." Read more here.
18:13 19.2.2014
Reports are now coming in that Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych has sacked the head of the armed forces, Col Gen Volodymyr Zamana.
18:41 19.2.2014
Here's a video that RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service issued earlier, offering a bird's eye view of the standoff in Kyiv:

Bird's Eye View Of Standoff In Kyiv
please wait

No media source currently available

0:00 0:00:34 0:00
18:56 19.2.2014
In what seems to be a reference to the situation in Ukraine, the Russian Foreign Ministry has a bone to pick with Swedish Foreign Affairs Minister Carl Bildt and BuzzFeed correspondent Max Seddon:

Load more

XS
SM
MD
LG