Good morning. We'll start the live blog today with this item that our news desk filed overnight:
EU's Top Diplomat Travels To Ukraine As Anniversary Of Crimea Takeover Looms
EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini is traveling to Kyiv on March 11 for talks with top Ukrainian government officials, ahead of the fourth anniversary of Russia's seizure of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula.
During her two-day working visit, Mogherini is to meet with President Petro Poroshenko, Prime Minister Volodymyr Hroysman, Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin, and the minister for temporarily occupied territories and internally displaced persons, Vadym Chernysh.
Mogherini's office said the trip comes "at an important moment for the implementation of crucial reforms" related to the Association Agreement strengthening ties between Ukraine and the European Union, which entered into force in September.
The visit "will be an opportunity to renew the European Union's longstanding commitment to the Ukrainian people and their aspirations to build a stronger Ukraine," a statement said.
Following the ouster of Moscow-friendly Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych by massive pro-European protests in February 2014, thousands of unmarked Russian soldiers took control of Crimea before Moscow formally seized the peninsula on March 18, 2014.
Russia also fomented unrest in eastern Ukraine, where fighting between Ukrainian government forces and Russia-backed separatists has killed more than 10,300 people since April 2014.
In Ukraine, Mogherini is set to address the situation on the ground and the implementation of the Minsk accords -- Western-backed cease-fire and peace deals signed in September 2014 and February 2015, and several additional agreements to cease hostilities.
She is due to meet with Ertugrul Apakan, the chief of the Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Martin Sajdik, the OSCE's special representative to the Trilateral Contact Group, which is attempting to regulate the conflict, and Alain Aeschlimann, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross's mission to Ukraine.
In Kyiv, Mogherini will also hold talks with students at the Taras Shevchenko University and representatives of civil society organizations, according to her office.
The European Union has been one of Ukraine's biggest backers.
On March 9, the European Commission said it had adopted a proposal for a new Macro-Financial Assistance (MFA) program worth up to 1 billion euros ($1.23 billion) to support Ukraine's economic stabilization and structural reforms.
But a statement said all disbursements under the proposed program would be conditional on the implementation of reforms, including steps to intensify the fight against corruption.
The proposal still needs to be approved by the European Parliament and European Council.
Since 2014, the bloc has pledged 12.8 billion euros to support the reform process in Ukraine, including 2.8 billion euros through three previous MFA programs.
Kyiv failed to meet all the conditions for the disbursement of a final tranche of loans under the previous aid program, which expired in January.
With reporting by Reuters
That concludes our live-blogging of the Ukraine crisis for Saturday, March 10, 2018. Check back here tomorrow for more of our continuing coverage.
Poroshenko: Ukraine Seeking NATO Membership Action Plan
By RFE/RL
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko says Kyiv is seeking a Membership Action Plan (MAP), a formal step toward joining NATO.
Poroshenko, in a post on Facebook on March 10, said a MAP was Ukraine's "next ambition" towards eventual membership in the 29-country Western alliance.
"This is what my letter to Jens Stoltenberg on February 2018 was about, where, with reference to Article 10 of the North Atlantic Treaty, I officially fixed Ukraine's aspirations to become a member of the alliance," Poroshenko wrote.
A Membership Action Plan is a multistage process of political dialogue and military reform to bring a country in line with NATO standards and to eventual membership.
The process can take several years.
Poroshenko's comments came after NATO updated its website to include Ukraine among three other countries -- Bosnia-Herzegovina, Georgia, and Macedonia -- aspiring to NATO membership.
But a NATO official told RFE/RL that the alliance has not changed its position on Ukraine.
"NATO's policy remains the same," the official said. "There has been a change in Ukraine's policy, which the website reflects."
Under former President Viktor Yanukovych, Kyiv said it was not interested in joining NATO. But Kyiv has sought NATO membership since the 2014 antigovernment Maidan protests that toppled pro-Russian Yanukovych and ushered in a pro-Western government.
Here is today's map of the security situation in eastern Ukraine, according to the National Security and Defense Council (CLICK TO ENLARGE):
