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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.

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
21:22 13.3.2014
More from the wires on the protester killed in Donetsk:

Reports from the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk say one person has been killed in clashes between people chanting pro-Russia slogans and others protesting against Moscow's takeover of Crimea.

Several other people were taken to the hospital with injuries.

The casualties were reported by local health officials.

Reports said there were several hundred protesters on both sides gathered on a central square in the industrial city when the clashes took place.

Police attempted to keep the two crowds apart but protesters broke through the police cordon.
21:11 13.3.2014
21:07 13.3.2014
BREAKING: Meanwhile, away from the UN and back in Ukraine, reports from the eastern city of Donetsk say one person has been killed in clashes between people chanting pro-Russia slogans and others protesting against Moscow's takeover of Crimea.
21:02 13.3.2014
Some highlights from Yatsenyuk's comments at the UN Security Council:

"We urge [the] Russian Federation to pull back its military forces deployed in Crimea to barracks and to start real talks and negotiations in order to tackle this conflict."

"The way our Russian neighbors -- and I believe that if we start real talks with Russia, they could be real partners -- acted, undermines the entire global security and nuclear non-proliferation program. As after these actions, it will be very difficult to convince anyone in the globe not to have nuclear weapon."

"I would like to reiterate again that the Ukrainian government is absolutely open, we want to have talks. We don't want to have any kind of military aggression."
20:49 13.3.2014
Yatsenyuk has finished speaking at the UN Security Council.

He told the council that his country has faced a military aggression that has "no reason and no grounds," but that there is still time to resolve the crisis.

Yatsenyuk, in an address to the UN Security Council, urged Russia to pull back its forces from Crimea and to start negotiations in earnest to resolve the crisis. He told the emergency session that it was still possible to resolve the crisis with Russia peacefully.

Turning to Russian Ambassador Vitali Churkin, Yansenyuk -- who until then had been delivering his address in English -- asked Churkin in Russian whether Russia really wanted war.
20:44 13.3.2014
You can watch the special Security Council meeting here at the UN's website.
20:33 13.3.2014
The Ukrainian prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, is still in the United States and is right now speaking to the UN Security Council.

He just told the council that his country has faced military aggression from Russia that has "no reason and no grounds."

He urged Russia to pull back its forces from Crimea and to start real negotiations to tackle the situation.
19:50 13.3.2014
Another journalist detained in Crimea:

A French television station says one of its journalists was briefly detained in Ukraine's Crimea region on Thursday.

A spokesman for Canal+ says that David Geoffrion was detained by pro-Russian gunmen at a military installation in the Crimean capital, Simferopol earlier on Thursday.

Canal+ said Geoffrion was filming a documentary when he was apprehended.The tv station's spokesman said the journalist was freed several hours later, but provided no details.

The incident comes three days after media watchdog Reporters Without Borders said it was "alarmed" by the violation of journalists' rights in Crimea after Ukrainian journalists were arrested.

Meanwhile, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said he may go to Moscow next week for talks with Russian officials about the crisis in Crimea.
19:03 13.3.2014
Is this a turnaround on the Russian position on OSCE monitors?

The Swiss chair of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe says Russia has changed its position and now supports a plan to send an OSCE monitoring mission to Ukraine, including Crimea.

Ambassador Thomas Greminger of Switzerland, which currently chairs the European security body, described this as a possible "big step forward."

However, he said that negotiations with Russia on this issue only started in earnest on Thursday.

Russia had been the only country among the 57 OSCE members not ready to consider such a mission, which was proposed by Switzerland.

The monitoring mission would be separate from the military observer mission currently deployed in Ukraine. An unnamed Western diplomat told dpa that Russia had submitted substantial changes to the Swiss draft mandate.

The OSCE military observers have been denied entry into Crimea at least three times.
18:33 13.3.2014

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