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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
19:37 11.3.2014
More on the flights of NATO's AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System) planes:

Romania's Defense Ministry says a NATO E-3A AWACS plane will fly over Romanian airspace as part of a planned exercise on Tuesday.

The ministry said on its website that AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System) planes fly at an altitude of 9,000 meters.

Their radar can survey an area of up to 31,000 square kilometres and can detect low-flying targets. The NATO alliance said on Monday it would start reconnaissance flights over Poland and Romania to monitor the situation in neighboring Ukraine, where Russian forces have taken control of Crimea.

NATO said AWACS planes will fly from their home air bases in Germany, and in Britain. Twelve F-16 U.S. warplanes are due to arrive in Poland by Thursday for planned joint exercises.

Meanwhile, bad weather delayed U.S. naval maneuvres with Romania and Bulgaria in the Black Sea.
19:46 11.3.2014
20:13 11.3.2014
More on the diplomatic efforts of a veteran Crimean Tatar leader, Mustafa Jemilev. He's left for Moscow for talks.

Jemilev is a prominent Soviet-era dissident, a former head of the Crimean Tatars' self-government body -- the Mejlis, and a Ukrainian lawmaker.

The Mejlis announced on its official website that Jemilev left for Moscow on Tuesday at the invitation of the former president of Russia's Tatarstan Republic, Mintimer Shaimiyev.

It said the visit had been coordinated with Ukraine's authorities.

Earlier, Jemilev said that Russian President Vladimir Putin had invited him to Moscow personally.

The Mejlis does not recognize Crimea's new pro-Kremlin government that plans to hold a referendum on Crimea joining Russia.
20:16 11.3.2014
State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki has given more detail about the call between John Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov:
"[U.S. State] Secretary [John] Kerry, during [his] call [with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov] this morning, made clear that any further escalatory steps will make the window for diplomacy more difficult. He also reiterated his willingness to continue to engage with Foreign Minister Lavrov, including this week, but that the environment has to be right and the goal must be to protect the immunity and sovereignty of Ukraine and we didn't see that, obviously, in the responses that we received back."
Psaki also said Kerry told Lavrov it is unacceptable for Russian forces to continue to take matters into their own hands in Ukraine.
In Moscow, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Lavrov had told Kerry that any solution to Ukraine's crisis must consider the interests of all Ukrainians and also respect "the rights of residents of Crimea to determine their future."
Both sides said their top diplomats were ready to continue talks.
20:29 11.3.2014
21:23 11.3.2014
We are winding up the blog for the night. Here's our wrap of the day's news. See you tomorrow.
07:41 12.3.2014
07:48 12.3.2014
Mark Mackinnon reports for the "Globe and Mail" from Odesa, where fears of a Russian invasion are mounting.

He writes:

"Odesa still feels like the city Catherine the Great envisioned, a southern St. Petersburg. Residents speak Russian and think fondly of Russia, or did until recent events. The scenic waterfront is dominated by a statue of the great Russian poet Alexander Pushkin, who lived briefly here, and the 142-metre-long Potemkin Staircase that was immortalized in film by Sergei Eisenstein. The region’s economy is dependent on the tens of thousands of Russian tourists who come every year to enjoy the region's sandy beaches and relatively balmy climate.

"But unlike Crimea, which only became part of Ukraine in 1954, the majority of Odesans are ethnic Ukrainians who have come to treasure their distance and independence from Moscow."
07:56 12.3.2014
Reuters photo gallery of images from Crimea:
08:12 12.3.2014

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