Ukraine crisis live updates: Pro-Russia protesters occupy govt building in Donetsk

5.19 pm: Pro-Russia protesters occupy regional govt in Donetsk

DONETSK: Pro-Russian demonstrators occupied the first floor of the regional government building in east Ukraine's city of Donetsk on Monday.
A Reuters reporter in a press centre on the fourth floor of the building said the protesters had seized the first floor but were unable to go higher because lifts were disabled and stairwell doors shut.
The 11-storey building has been flying the Russian flag, rather than the Ukrainian flag, for three days, with demonstrators carrying Russian flags staging rallies outside. - Reuters

5.05 pm: EU to urge mediation with Russia over Ukraine

BRUSSELS: European Union foreign ministers will push on Monday for high-level mediation to resolve the crisis over Russia's invasion of Crimea, while threatening the possibility of sanctions if Russia does not back down.
In emergency talks convened after Russian President Vladimir Putin seized the Crimean peninsula and said he had the right to invade Ukraine, ministers will try to strike a balance between pressure on Moscow and finding a way to calm the situation.
Germany, France and Britain, the EU's most-powerful nations, are all advocating mediation to resolve the crisis, possibly via the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, while not ruling out economic measures if Moscow does not cooperate.
"Crisis diplomacy is not a weakness but it will be more important than ever to not fall into the abyss of military escalation," German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told reporters as he arrived for the talks in Brussels. - Reuters
 

A Ukrainian woman looks at military personnel, believed to be Russian servicemen, standing outside the territory of a Ukrainian military unit in the village of Perevalnoye outside Simferopol on March 3, 2014. REUTERS/Baz Ratner

5 pm: Ukraine increases Russian gas imports, braces for price hike
KIEV/LONDON: Ukraine has increased gas imports from Russiaover the last few days, a spokesman for Ukraine's gas transit monopoly said on Monday, amid warnings that state gas producer Gazprom might scrap a discount on prices.
As concerns grow over gas supplies after Russian President Vladimir Putin won parliamentary approval to invade Ukraine, analysts say Kiev is trying to import as much gas as possible at the lower prices.
Moscow, enraged with Ukraine's new pro-EU government, has warned Kiev it could lose the discount it currently gets from Gazprom due to Kiev's outstanding gas debt.
"We doubled our gas imports from Russia. We imported 45 million cubic metres of gas on March 1, 2014, compared with 20 million on March 1, 2013," said Maxim Belyavsky, a spokesman for Ukraine's gas transit monopoly Ukrtransgas.
Ukraine is a major buyer of gas from Gazprom, which exported almost 26 bcm of gas to its neighbour last year, more than half of the 50.4 bcm it consumed. - Reuters

4.53 pm: Russian fighter jets violated Ukraine's air space, says ministry

KIEV: Russian fighter jets twice violated Ukraine's air space over the Black Sea during the night, Interfax news agency quoted the Defence Ministry as saying on Monday.
It said Ukraine's air force had scrambled a Sukhoi SU-27 interceptor aircraft and prevented any "provocative actions" but gave no further details. - Reuters

4.50 pm: Still not too late for peaceful solution in Ukraine, says Merkel aide
BERLIN: Germany's Angela Merkel believes it is not too late to resolve the Ukrainian crisis by political means despite differences in opinion betweenVladimir Putin and the West on Crimea, which Russia now controls, an aide to the chancellor said on Monday.
Merkel has proposed to the Russian president Putin and U.S. President Barack Obama sending a "fact-finding mission" to the Ukrainian region of Crimea, a peninsula on the Black Sea where Russian forces have seized control without any fighting.
"It is still not to late to resolve this crisis peacefully by political means," said Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert, urging Moscow to withdraw "from the logic of troop movements".
"There is no doubt President Putin has a completely different view on the situation and events in Crimea from the German government and our Western partners," he said. - Reuters

A pro-Russian soldier stands by a billboard with a map of Crimea and bearing the words Autonomous Republic of Crimea in the port of Kerch in Ukraine on March 3, 2014. AP/Darko Vojinovic

4.45 pm: UN Chief Will Urge Russia To De-Escalate Ukraine Crisis

Geneva: United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said on Monday that he would ask Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that Russia refrain from any acts or rhetoric that would further escalate the crisis in Ukraine and instead seek dialogue with authorities in Kiev.

Ban said that his deputy Jan Eliasson, who had just arrived in Kiev, would "convey the same message to Ukrainian authorities".
"It is now of utmost importance to restore calm and to de-escalate tensions immediately through dialogue," Ban told a news conference in Geneva shortly before holding talks with Lavrov.

"I will urge that the Russian Federation refrain from any acts and rhetoric that could further escalate the situation and instead to engage constructively and through peaceful means with Ukraine." -Reuters

4.30 pm: Russian Foreign Minister Tells West To Put Ukrainian People First

Moscow: Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Monday rejected accusations that Russia is acting aggressively toward Ukraine and accused the West of putting its own "geopolitical calculations" ahead of the fate of the people in the former Soviet republic.
At a U.N. human rights meeting in Geneva, Lavrov tried to turn the tables following a hail of Western criticism after President Vladimir Putin secured permission from lawmakers to send the military into Ukraine.

"We call for a responsible approach, to put aside geopolitical calculations, and above all to put the interests of the Ukrainian people first," he said on a live feed broadcast to Moscow.

While the Kremlin says Putin has not decided to send troops into Ukraine, Western states say Russian forces have already taken control of Crimea, a Black Sea peninsula with a Russian majority. -Reuters

Russian actions in Ukraine threaten Europe: NATO chief

Russia’s military actions in Ukraine pose a threat to Europe, NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Sunday ahead of special talks by the alliance’s ambassadors on the crisis.

“What Russia is doing now in Ukraine violates the principles of the United Nations charter. It threatens peace and security in Europe.

Russia must stop its military activities and these threats (against Ukraine),” he told journalists in Brussels.

“Ukraine is our neighbour and Ukraine is a valued partner for NATO,” he added. “We support Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. We support the right of the people of Ukraine to determine their own future without outside interference.” The ambassadors are holding consultations at the request of Poland and Lithuania, which have invoked Article 4 of the NATO charter. It allows for consultations if a member state feels threatened.

Russian troops surround Crimea

Earlier, a convoy of hundreds of Russian troops headed towards the regional capital of Ukraine’s Crimea region on Sunday, a day after Russia’s forces took over the strategic Black Sea peninsula without firing a shot.

The new government in Kiev has been powerless to react. Ukraine’s Parliament was meeting Sunday in a closed session.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has defied calls from the West to pull back his troops, insisting that Russia has a right to protect its interests and the Russian-speaking population in Crimea and elsewhere in Ukraine.

There has been no sign of ethnic Russians facing attacks in Crimea, where they make up about 60 percent of the population, or elsewhere in Ukraine. Russia maintains an important naval base on Crimea.

President Barack Obama spoke with Putin by telephone for 90 minutes on Saturday and expressed his “deep concern” about “Russia’s clear violation of Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity,” the White House said. But the U.S. and other Western governments had few options to counter Russia’s military moves.

NATO’s North Atlantic Council, the alliance’s political decision-making body, and the NATO-Ukraine Commission were to meet on Sunday. NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the allies will “coordinate closely” on the situation in Ukraine, which he termed “grave.”

Ukraine is not a NATO member, meaning the U.S. and Europe are not obligated to come to its defense. But Ukraine has taken part in some alliance military exercises and contributed troops to its response force.

On the road from Sevastopol, the Crimean port where Russia has its naval base, to Simferopol on Sunday morning, Associated Press journalists saw 12 military trucks carrying troops, a Tiger vehicle armed with a machine gun and also two ambulances.

Ukraine’s acting president, Oleksandr Turchynov, announced late Saturday that he had ordered Ukraine’s armed forces to be at full readiness because of the threat of “potential aggression.” He also said he had ordered stepped-up security at nuclear power plants, airports and other strategic infrastructure.

On Crimea, however, Ukrainian troops have offered no resistance.

The new government came to power last week following months of pro-democracy protests against the now-fugitive president, Viktor Yanukovych, and his decision to turn Ukraine toward Russia, its longtime patron, instead of the European Union.

Ukraine’s population of 46 million is divided in loyalties between Russia and Europe, with much of western Ukraine advocating closer ties with the EU, while eastern and southern regions look to Russia for support. Crimea, a semi-autonomous region that Russia gave to Ukraine in the 1950s, is mainly Russian-speaking.