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As you may recall, the official Crimean election results, as reported widely in the Western press, showed a 97 percent vote in favor of annexation with a turnout of 83 percent. No international observers were allowed. The pro-Russia election pressure would have raised the already weak vote in favor of annexation, of course. Yesterday, however, according to a major Ukrainian news site, TSN.ua, the website of the President of Russia’s Council on Civil Society and Human Rights (shortened to President’s Human Rights Council) posted a report that was quickly taken down as if it were toxic radioactive waste. According to...

On that side, there’s an emblem of the Russian Federation’s ministry of defense. Below that, this inscription: “For the return of Crimea 20.02.14 - 03.18.14.” Yet how could the dates of Crimea’s “liberation” have begun on February 20th? An image of the medal was quickly removed from the Russian defense ministry’s website after the ceremony on March 25, but the damage was done. How could Crimea have been “liberated” in an operation beginning on February 20, the day on which a bloody assault against the Maidan protesters began in Kiev, killing nearly 100 people? Even more perplexing is that Viktor...

A spokesman for Republican House Speaker John Boehner called Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid "unhinged" on Monday, after Reid charged Republicans may have had a helping hand in emboldening Russia to annex Crimea. "Since a few Republicans blocked these important sanctions last work period, Russian lawmakers voted to annex Crimea and Russian forces have taken over Ukrainian military bases," Reid said on the Senate floor Monday. "It's impossible to know whether events would have unfolded differently if the United States had responded to Russian aggression with a strong, unified voice." Reid was referring to the stalling of a Ukraine aid...

FEODOSIA, Crimea -- It started at about 4:15 a.m. on March 24, with dull explosions echoing over Feodosia. Russian soldiers and Russian-backed Crimean self-defense forces threw stun grenades into the territory of the Ukrainian 1st Separate Marine Battalion. Two helicopters circled and hovered. There was machine-gun fire from the Russian side, and fists from the Ukrainian side. But the base was quickly taken by three Russian armored personnel carriers full of special-force troops. By then, there were 60-80 Ukrainian marine holdouts left at the base, out of a full complement of 300 marines. However, the marines say their commander, Dmitry...

March 13 deputies of the Supreme Council of Crimea approved the 33-year-old Sexy Natalia Poklonskaya as prosecutor of Crimea Prior to his appointment Poklonskaya served as chief prosecutor of a department of the Main Department of the Attorney General in Simferopol. Immediately after the appointment of Ms. Poklonskaya gave a press conference broadcast STRC “Crimea”, where, in particular, called the Kiev authorities “devils from the ashes.” Geprokuratura Ukraine has accused his former employee of complicity in actions aimed at the seizure of state power, and started her criminal case. Also add that the prosecutor of the Crimea – a passionate...

Obama reveals Final Four bracket picks By: Tal Kopan March 19, 2014 06:12 AM EDT As America settles in for another round of March Madness, its basketball fan in chief is releasing his bracket for the NCAA College Basketball Championships. President Barack Obama’s Final Four picks for the men’s and women’s tournaments were revealed Tuesday night, with the full bracket set to be revealed at 9 a.m. on Wednesday, according to ESPN. Obama chose No. 1 seeds Arizona and Florida, No. 4 seeds Louisville and Michigan State to make it to the men’s Final Four. “I know these are not...

The Weekly Standard reported yesterday that, despite the invasion of Ukraine by Russia as well as Putin calling Obama’s bluff after the ‘stern warning’ given to Russia, Barack Obama failed to attend his National Security Team meeting to discuss the situation between Russia and Ukraine. Instead, he was later ‘briefed’ by Susan Rice. According to Todd Starnes from FOX News, rather than attend the security briefing, Obama instead ‘attended a White House Film Festival where pool reporters said he socialized with second graders.’ Prior to the terrorist attack at Benghazi, Obama demonstrated a pattern of missing his security intelligence meetings....

In the wake of a March 16 referendum in which Crimeans voted to join the Russian Federation, Ukrainian leaders refused to cede any part of the peninsula, calling on their troops to prepare for war. “Crimea was, is, and will be our territory,” said Defense Minister Ihor Tenyukh in a statement delivered at the Ukrainian Crisis Media Center on March 17. Former heavyweight boxing champion and leader of the Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform Vitali Klitschko announced that Ukrainian troops would remain at their bases, even after March 21, the end of a peace treaty signed by the interior ministries...

Let’s start with money matters. Who will pay the pensions of retirees who paid into the Ukrainian system? Voters are being told that Russia will assume the obligations for all pensions, with a big leap in benefits. For example, the average monthly pension in Russia is said to be about $270, almost double the $150 paid in the average Ukrainian’s monthly pension. And the retirement age will drop by five years, to 60 for men and 55 for women. And what about schools? Schoolchildren are expected to get new history books with a more outsize section on Russian history...

Just as the last refuge of the poltroon is patriotism, the last refuge of the GOP poltroon is comparing oneself with Reagan. WeÂ’ve seen this play on in humiliating clarity over the past several days with the behavior of freshman senator and presidential hopeful Rand Paul concerning the Russian anschluss with Crimea.In the Beginning He Was Pacifist Back when the, we must note, popularly elected government of Ukraine president flamed out in a wave of popular protests, some Republicans, notably John McCain, said that Russian President Vladimir Putin should be warned not to take advantage of the situation. Rand Paul,...

peculation was growing last night that American mercenaries had been deployed to Donetsk after videos emerged of unidentified armed men in the streets of the eastern Ukrainian city. At least two videos published on YouTube earlier this week show burly, heavily armed soldiers with no insignia in the city, which has been gripped by pro-Moscow protests. In one of the videos onlookers can be heard shouting 'Blackwater! Blackwater!' as the armed men, who wear no insignia, jog through the streets....

In a serious escalation of tension in Crimea, a Ukrainian Greek Catholic priest was kidnapped on Saturday. Sources in Ukraine say Father Mykola Kvych, a pastor and a Ukrainian military chaplain, was abducted by pro-Russian forces after celebrating the liturgy. Reports Saturday evening suggest Father Kvych may have been released, but those reports have not yet been confirmed. “Every abduction is a terrible event for everybody involved,” said Bishop Borys Gudziak, the Eparch of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Eparchy. “It’s a gross violation of human rights and God-given human dignity.” He expressed his grave concern about the repercussions of the...

KIEV - The man Russian President Vladimir Putin has cast as one of Europe's potential new Adolf Hitlers is a little late for coffee this Saturday morning. Igor Mazur, or Topoyla (Poplar) as he's known because he's 6'7" is the leader of the Ukranian Right Sector at Maidan, Kiev's Independence Square. The Right Sector are the radical nationalists of this Ukranian Revolution. There are others: the right-wing Svoboda (Freedom) Party, for one, which has an actual political following, 12 percent of the vote in the last elections. It used to identify itself as a national socialist movement, just like the...

With a day left until the critical, if widely expected, results from the Crimean referendum are revealed, it is worth recalling the main footnote in last night's State Department travel alert for Russia: "all U.S. citizens located in or considering travel to the border region, specifically the regions bordering Ukraine in Bryansk, Kursk, Belgorod, Voronezh, and Rostov Oblasts and Krasnodar Krai, should be aware of the potential for escalation of tensions, military clashes (either accidental or intentional)." See, for the purpose of a military provocation, "accidental" will do. It is therefore not surprising to see that moments ago all...

(Reuters) - The new governor of the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk on Friday said Russians were behind violent clashes between rival demonstrators in which one man was killed, and accused Moscow of distorting the truth in its account of what happened. Russia warned it could move in to protect compatriots - a similar justification as used in last week's military takeover of Crimea. And Ukraine's acting president raised the alarm over a Russian troop build-up on the eastern border that has fuelled fears in Kiev of a broader invasion by its former Soviet ruler. "Sadly, we note that there...

President Obama with Vladimir Putin. Photo: Pete Souza A great deal of ink has been spilt over the evolving situation in Ukraine, and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s de facto annexation of Crimea. At present, Crimea’s parliament has called for a public referendum to consider formal secession from Ukraine—the vote will be held on March 16.The Ukrainian government holds that Crimea’s upcoming referendum is unconstitutional, but no one in the Crimean government cares what Ukraine thinks. Regardless, the “popular vote” will likely result in Crimea’s separation from Ukraine for four reasons: 1) Crimea’s population is nearly 60 percent ethnic Russian;...

Moscow — Around 50,000 people rallied in central Moscow Saturday in protest at Russia's intervention in Ukraine, a day before the Crimean peninsula votes on switching to Kremlin rule. Waving both Ukrainian and Russian flags and shouting slogans heard during the anti-government protests in Kiev, the demonstrators urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to pull troops back from a Cold War-style confrontation. Marchers carried placards reading "Putin, get out of Ukraine" and others comparing Russia's move on Crimea with the Nazi annexation of the Sudetenland as Europe rushed headlong into World War II.

Spokesman Jay Carney said, “we are late in the game” regarding the situation in Crimea & Sunday’s referendum

A United States surveillance drone has been intercepted above the Ukranian region of Crimea, a Russian state arms and technology group said Friday. "The drone was flying at about 4,000 metres (12,000 feet) and was virtually invisible from the ground. It was possible to break the link with US operators with complex radio-electronic" technology, said Rostec in a statement. The drone fell "almost intact into the hands of self-defence forces" added Rostec, which said it had manufactured the equipment used to down the aircraft, but did not specify who was operating it.

Talks between U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov over the crisis in Ukraine reached an apparent impasse Friday, with Lavrov indicating afterward that the two had reached no “common vision” and Kerry saying that Moscow is determined to let a Crimean secession vote go ahead. Kerry told reporters that after six hours of talks with Lavrov, “the foreign minister made it clear that President [Vladimir] Putin is not prepared to make any decision regarding Ukraine until after the referendum on Sunday.” He referred to a Crimean vote on independence, which Crimean officials have...