Live Blog: UN Backs Ukraine Integrity

The escalating crisis in Ukraine is sending shivers through Kazakhstan, where politicians have begun to openly express reservations about the wisdom of proceeding with the Eurasian Union, Vladimir Putin's highly sought EU counterpart linking Russia with Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia, and preferably more post-Soviet states.

Asylkhan Mamashuly of RFE/RL's Kazakh Service reports that Kazakh authorities and analysts have begun to urge putting the brakes on the project -- tentatively due for a January 2015 debut -- amid a growing realization that an ostensibly economic union with Russia could easily turn political.

No less a figure than President Nursultan Nazarbaev has signalled his alarm. The Kazakh leader, who traveled to Moscow on March 5 for a meeting of the Eurasian Economic Commission, returned home the next day to hold a series of defense meetings during which he reportedly suggested that it might be time to strengthen army forces along its massive 12,000-kilometer border.

Among others urging caution is Yerlan Karin, the former Nur Otan party secretary, who points to Russia's refusal in Ukraine to recognize the terms of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, in which newly independent Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan traded in their nuclear weapons in return for territorial independence. Events in Ukraine, he told "Kursiv" newspaper, signaled the need for a "time out" in Astana's integration projects.

Read the whole story (in Russian) here:

From the agencies:

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has declined an invitation to visit Russia later today for further talks on the Ukraine crisis.

Lavrov, at a meeting with President Vladimir Putin in Sochi on March 10, also said he had been handed proposals last week by Kerry to resolve the situation which, he said, "did not completely suit us." In a reference to the post-Yanukovych government, Lavrov suggested Moscow objected to wording in the U.S. proposal that accepted as a starting point the "de facto situation...that has been created thanks to the coup."

You can listen here to "New Yorker" editor David Remnick's new commentary on Vladimir Putin, Russian nationalism, and whether Crimea might be the former KGB agent-cum-president's undoing, "Putin's Pique." Here's a taste of it:

Another image of the "self-defense" recruits taking their oath.

The U.S. State Department says Washington wants to see proof that Russia is prepared to engage on U.S. diplomatic proposals aimed to resolve the crisis in Ukraine. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said that Secretary of State John Kerry had laid out a number of ideas to his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov and is prepared to take part in further talks "if and when we see concrete evidence that Russia is prepared to engage on these proposals." Psaki said Kerry has yet to receive any response.

NATO will start flying AWACS reconnaissance missions over Poland and Romania as part of the alliance's efforts to monitor events in Ukraine. NATO ambassadors on Monday endorsed the proposal from the alliance's top military commander, U.S. Air Force General Philip Breedlove. A NATO official said the flights would "enhance the alliance's situational awareness." The official made clear all the flights "will take place solely over alliance territory."