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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
15:34 8.3.2014
Want to know how Russia took Crimea? The position of Russian vessels? The comparative military strength of Russia and Ukraine?

Check out this feature from "The New York Times" - Ukraine Crisis In Maps.
15:37 8.3.2014
Writing in "Novaya gazeta," Yulia Latynina argues that the West should start an oil-and-gas war with Russia by driving down energy prices.
16:00 8.3.2014
AP reports on all those military vehicles we've been seeing moving through Crimea today:

SEVASTOPOL, Ukraine (AP) — Dozens of military trucks transporting heavily armed soldiers rumbled over Crimea's rutted roads Saturday as Russia reinforced its armed presence on the disputed peninsula in the Black Sea. Moscow's foreign minister ruled out any dialogue with Ukraine's new authorities, whom he dismissed as the puppets of extremists.

The Russians have denied their armed forces are active in Crimea, but an Associated Press reporter trailed one military convoy Saturday afternoon from 25 miles (40 kilometers) west of Feodosia to a military airfield at Gvardeiskoe north of Simferopol, over which a Russian flag flew.

Some of the army green vehicles had Russian license plates and numbers indicating that they were from the Moscow region. Some towed mobile kitchens and what appeared to be mobile medical equipment.
16:04 8.3.2014
Ben Judah writing in "The New York Times" on "London's Laundry Business":

"It boils down to this: Britain is ready to betray the United States to protect the City of London’s hold on dirty Russian money. And forget about Ukraine."
16:11 8.3.2014
Unconfirmed reports surfacing that Russian troops have taken the village of Chonhar, on the road between Simferopol and mainland Ukraine.


Again, these reports are unconfirmed, but this merits watching.
16:17 8.3.2014
Video of a massive column of Russian military vehicles on the road between the Russian cities of Kradnodar and Novorossisk, east of Crimea.


The Interpreter's Live Blog asks the question on everybody's mind:

With Russian troops in firm control of the ferry routes between the Taman Bay and Kerch, the eastern-most point in Crimea, this begs the obvious question:
Is this an invasion force, prepared for the final Russia push into Crimea, or perhaps beyond?
16:18 8.3.2014
16:22 8.3.2014
MIchael McFaul, the recently departed U.S. Ambassador to Russia, says in Slate that Russia's intervention in Crimea effectively kills Vladimir Putin's Eurasian Union project.

The money quote:

“I don’t think it’s a fait accompli that Crimea will be occupied forever,” he said. “It’s a big if. But if it happens, it destroys the project. There’s no doubt about it. Most importantly, if that tragic scenario plays out, you have made sure that the rest of Ukraine will never have any interest in joining a Eurasian Union. It just changes the electoral politics within Ukraine. The only mechanism he’ll have left is coercive power—he’ll coerce countries into joining. But the size of the Ukrainian economy and population just dwarfs everybody else in the former Soviet Union who could join. Ukraine was always the big prize, and he’s just guaranteed that it’s now over.”
16:24 8.3.2014
Russia's Interfax news agency is reporting that former oil tycoon MIkhail Khodorkovsky will give a talk in Kyiv on March 10 on "rights and freedoms."
16:29 8.3.2014
RFE/RL's Russian Service reports on a protest in Crimea by women -- on International Wonen's Day -- against Russia's military incursion in Crimea.

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