In the port city of Mariupol (map), we're still trying to piece together exactly what happened there. This report is from Euromaidan PR, a Twitter account linked to the leaders of the Euromaidan protests in Kiev:
We're working on confirming these reports.
Some more breaking news:
Chapter 3 of the Vienna Document is designed to reduce risk of international conflicts through "exchanging information on defense policy, force planning, budgets, procurements, and calendars."
In other words, OSCE members now believe that the movement and position of Russian troops in eastern Europe constitutes an unusual situation, and one of which the international community has not been properly informed.
Strobe Talbott, who was Deputy Secretary of State from 1994 to 2001 and is currently associated with Yale University and the Brookings Institution, has just spoken to MSNBC. His assessment is grim: Putin wants to destabilize not just Ukraine, but all countries in eastern Europe (and beyond) which Russian wants to become either "vassal states that basically take orders from Moscow, or basket cases." Talbott also speaks about Russia's PR campaign:
"This is not 'effective PR.' This is the worst, most grotesque kind of Orwellian propaganda. We haven't seen this kind of 'Big Lie' since the darkest days of the Cold War, and... we have to be very very careful about accepting the Russian version of what's happening there (in Ukraine)." Talbott goes on to say that the polling is clear -- as The Interpreter has pointed out -- that very few in eastern Ukraine support declaring independence or joining eastern Ukraine.
See the video of Talbott's full remarks.