Live updates Crimea - Ukraine crisis.

Ukraine - Crimea Crisis Live updates from MFS Twitter   France 24 , Interpreter , Kyevpost and RT Russian - Euromaidan in English – Site of the Official English-language Public Relations Secretariat for the Headquarters of the National Resistance in Kyiv, Ukraine.

A fact-check site created to control disinformation in #Russian media due to the massive Russian propaganda -http://stopfake.org/

Live blogging : 

The NATO Council concluded its meeting under Article 4 of the Treaty, you can read their statement here http://goo.gl/aDyXWA

Crimea to Get Its Own Defense Ministry

Ukrainian Black Sea fleet can move under the command of the Crimea

Amphibious ships "Saratov" and "Yamal" entered the Black Sea.

Voice of Russia: Defense Ministry "pay attention" to the Pentagon's decision to suspend military ties with Russia

Transcript: Putin defends Russian intervention in Ukraine http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/transcript-putin-defends-russian-intervention-in-ukraine/2014/03/04/9cadcd1a-a3a9-11e3-a5fa-55f0c77bf39c_story.html 

Breaking: #Russia refuses to take part in talks with #Ukraine US and EU citing "scheduling conflict" - @cnn's 

"If the elections are hold under the same terror as it is now, we do not recognize them" - Putin.... http://fb.me/11Ze3S8jz

U.S. Sanctions on Russia Likely “Days” Away: Official ~WSJ. Liveblog → Storyfy

Putin: Deploying military force is last resort, but we reserve right.

         Putin orders forces engaged in military exercises to go back to base - Kremlin

Crimea’s Top Ten List. Andrew Wilson of the European Council on Foreign Relations and a scholar at University College London’s School of Slavonic & East European Studies has a handy list of facts pertaining to the crisis in Crimea. This has been widely circulated on Facebook:

1. The new pro-Russian Crimean authorities, who took power on 27 February, were established at gunpoint. Despite Russian rhetoric about a ‘coup’ in Kiev, the real coup was in Crimea. The Crimean Assembly building was taken over by Berkut militia and ‘irregulars’ after a seemingly successful rally supporting the authorities in Kiev. Many of these were allegedly fleeing from their crimes against demonstrators in Kiev.
2. This is totally unlike the Russian war in Georgia in 2008. Then, by most accounts, the Georgians were provoked into firing first. This time, the situation in Crimea was perfectly stable before the Russian take-over. The Russian language is protected in the ‘Autonomous Republic of Crimea’ under the Ukrainian Constitution. Only one Russian citizen has died in the current crisis, and he was shot by snipers in Kiev.
3. The proposed referendum on 30 March to ‘decide Crimea’s future status’ is against the Ukrainian Constitution. Only a national vote can change the country’s borders.
4. The new Crimean ‘Prime Minister’ Sergey Aksionov was a local gangster in the 1990s. His nickname was ‘goblin’. His Russia Party won only 4% at the last elections in Crimea
5. There are 266,000 Crimean Tatars in Crimea. Before the coup they were chanting ‘Allah is Great! Glory to Ukraine!’. Now they are reportedly forming ‘self-defence’ units. They were all deported by Stalin to Central Asia in 1944; half died as a result. They were only allowed to return after 1989 and still live in marginal conditions. The 70th anniversary of the Deportation is this May.
6. The Crimean Tatars are Sunni Muslim. The Crimean Tatar Khanate was the dominant power in the region from 1441 until Crimea was occupied by the Russian Empire in 1783. The campaign to turn it into a Russian Athos, a centre of Orthodox Christianity, only gathered pace after the Crimean War.
7. There is an ethnic Russian majority in Crimea (58%), but most are post-war in-migrants. Some 24% are Ukrainian. Crimean Tatars are over 13%, but nearer 20% of the school population.
8. Crimea is a peninsula. It gets all its water and gas from the rest of Ukraine.
9. There are big deposits of oil and gas off the Crimean coast.
10. Russia is re-supplying its Black Sea Fleet for a role in the Eastern Mediterranean, including linking up with the old Soviet naval base in Tartu, Syria.

Video - Russian troops fire shots over the heads of Ukrainian air force personnel near occupied airport Belbek Crimea.

U.S AIRCRAFT CARRIER BATTLE GROUP NEARS BLACK SEA. http://turnerradionetwork.com/news/340-pat

Russian soldiers in the Crimea- 'We're in our land'