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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
12:22 9.3.2014
Nice Shaun Walker "Guardian" piece on the dilemma of Ukrainian troops in Crimea, including an unconfirmed report that a visit by high-ranking military personnel from Kyiv ended in a kidnapping, possibly with three Ukrainian officers now "in an FSB prison in Sevastopol and could be transferred to Russia soon."

Here's the gist of the piece:

There is frustration at the bases at Kiev's failure to take more decisive action. A Ukrainian military source in Sevastopol said: "There's a feeling that in Kiev they are paralysed: they don't want to believe that this is happening, and they just don't know what to do. They are hoping they will wake up and find this will all have gone away – that there will be a miracle. They are not doing anything."

He added: "Can you imagine if there was just one American soldier stranded somewhere and being assaulted by enemies? The US government would mount a massive campaign to save him. We have thousands of soldiers stranded and they have been abandoned by our government, completely abandoned."

12:34 9.3.2014
12:38 9.3.2014
Carl Bildt seems awfully concerned here:
12:43 9.3.2014
Here's the direct Yatsenyuk quote via Reuters on his urgent trip to the United States: "I am going to the United states to hold top-level meetings on resolving the situation unfolding in our bilateral and multilateral relations."
13:12 9.3.2014
A polyglot antiwar video on YouTube by Ukrainian university students allied in their support for Euromaidan (h/t @edwardlucas):
13:15 9.3.2014
Our correspondent in Donetsk Tom Balmforth says that with most pro-Moscow demonstrators having marched back to Lenin Square, the regional administration, which was seized twice this past week by pro-Russians, is being guarded by more than 100 riot police, with the entrance blocked by barbed wire and a truck.
13:16 9.3.2014
Here's our man in Donetsk's photo of the government building:
13:18 9.3.2014
Just trying to share some of what's been going on in Donetsk, where thousands of pro-Russian demonstrators are holding a rally.
13:25 9.3.2014
RFE/RL correspondent Tom Balmforth says from Donetsk with a "Maidan" demonstration under way (following the pro-Russia rally in the same city) outside the Sacred Transfiguration Cathedral, a few hundred meters from the regional administration building. The so-called pro-Ukrainians have suggested that they fear paid pro-Moscow thugs will attack them. "Maidan" football hooligans he has spoken to said they would come, too. So things are tense.
13:26 9.3.2014
Sobering words being reported from former U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates:

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