Ukrainians vote Sunday in an early presidential election that could be a crucial step toward resolving the country's crisis, but separatists in the east are threatening to block the vote.
President Vladimir Putin announced Friday that Russia will recognize the outcome of Ukraine's presidential vote this weekend but voiced hope that Ukraine would halt its military operation against separatists in the east.
Russia on Friday accused the West of triggering the Ukrainian crisis by its "megalomania," as fighting continued in Ukraine's east between pro-Russia insurgents and government forces two days before a presidential election.
The U.S. has seen no evidence that Russia has begun its announced withdrawal of troops from the Ukraine border area, a Pentagon spokesman said Tuesday.
Local patrols by steelworkers have forced pro-Russia insurgents to pull out of the government buildings they had seized in this city in eastern Ukraine, giving residents hope Friday that a wave of anarchy was over.
Pro-Russian insurgents in Ukraine's Donetsk region declared independence Monday and asked to join Russia — a day after holding a hastily arranged vote on separatism that Ukraine's interim government and the West have declared a sham.
Presiding over a triumphant spectacle of warships and fighter jets, President Vladimir Putin hailed the return of Crimea to Russia as the restoration of "historic justice" before a jubilant, welcoming crowd Friday on the holiday that Russians hold dearest.
A strong majority of Ukrainians want their country to remain a single, unified state and this is true even in the largely Russian-speaking east where a pro-Russia insurgency has been fighting for autonomy, a poll released Thursday shows.
A senior U.N. diplomat has arrived in Kiev while Switzerland's president is in Moscow to meet President Vladimir Putin, in a flurry of diplomatic activity seeking to de-escalate tensions in Ukraine.
Ukraine sent an elite national guard unit to its southern port of Odessa, desperate to halt a spread of the fighting between government troops and a pro-Russia militia in the east that killed combatants on both sides Monday.