EWI offers a daily situation report on Ukraine's unfolding crisis, featuring key developments and links to a number of analytical pieces from foreign policy experts around the world.

Key developments

Interim Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk will meet with President Obama on Wednesday at the White House. Yatsenyuk will also address the UN Security Council in New York City on Thursday.
Over the weekend, world leaders have conducted a series of phone conversations trying to garner international support for their viewpoints:
- President Obama spoke separately with Prime Minister Cameron of the U.K., President Hollande of France and Prime Minister Renzi of Italy. Obama welcomed the unified stance taken by the U.S. and Europe against Russian military intervention in Crimea.
- Obama also spoke with Presidents Berzins of Latvia, Grybauskaite of Lithuania and Ilves of Estonia. The Baltic leaders welcomed last week’s deployment of U.S. fighters to the region, while Obama expressed continued U.S. commitments to its NATO allies.
- In separate phone calls with Chancellor Merkel and President Obama, President Xi Jinping of China urged restraint and a peaceful resolution to the conflict.
- In phone conversations with Prime Minister Cameron and Chancellor Merkel, President Putin claims that Russian actions in the Crimea were in accordance with international law and that the new Ukrainian government was failing to curb “ultra-nationalist and radical forces.”
In a press conference in Kiev, Geoffrey R. Pyatt, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, has stated that the U.S. will not recognize the results of the Crimean referendum scheduled for Sunday, March 16. These statements were echoed by Antony Blinken, the deputy national security advisor, in D.C.
In response to U.S. sanctions, the Russian Defense Ministry warns that it is considering freezing international inspections of Russia’s nuclear weapons that are a part of Russia’s commitment to nuclear arms treaties.
Pavlo Rizanenko, a member of the Ukrainian parliament, has warned that the failure of the Budapest Memorandum may force Ukraine to acquire nuclear weapons as a deterrent against Russia. The 1994 Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances signed by the Russian Federation, the U.S. and the U.K. guarantees the sovereignty of an independent Ukraine in return for Ukrainian accession to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the surrender of all Ukrainian Soviet-inherited nuclear weapons to Russia.
Kiev estimates that there are 18,000 pro-Russian troops currently in Crimea. “Russian troops have deployed along the Crimea’s borders to block the movement of Ukrainian troops.
As the Russian Foreign Ministry condemned anti-Russian violence in eastern Ukraine, Russian news agencies are reporting a looming pro-Russian uprising in the region.
Western officials are trying to find ways to alleviate the stranglehold of Russian natural gas on Ukraine that include larger natural gas exports from the United States, reversing natural gas from Western Europe back to Ukraine and diversifying natural gas imports from countries other than Russia.
Ukrainian television channels have been shut down in the Crimea and replaced by Russian state television.
Planned U.S. aid to Ukraine has become entangled in a political dispute over the governance structure of the International Monetary Fund that would grant more control to emerging powers. Republicans fear a loss of American influence and express an unwillingness to use taxpayer money to bail out fiscally irresponsible countries like Ukraine.