The West has not yet reached a stage where it will be ready to impose economic sanctions on Russia, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said, stressing that she hopes for a political solution to the stalemate over Ukraine crisis. The chancellor said she is “not interested in escalation” of tensions with Russia, speaking after Wednesday meeting with the South Korean president in Berlin. [...]

President Obama's key speech in Brussels on Ukraine and attempts to isolate Russia appears to be an exercise of omission, mutually-exclusive statements and unveiled double standards. Here's a quick look at what Obama told an audience of some 2,000 people in his damning 30-minute speech. [...]

Moscow'€™s actions in the Crimea are comprehensible, former German chancellor, Helmut Schmidt said, criticizing the Western reaction to the peninsula'€™s reunification with Russia. President Vladimir Putin’s approach to the Crimean issue is “completely understandable,” Schmidt wrote in Die Zeit newspaper where he’s employed as an editor. [...]

The standoff between Russia and Ukraine still hints at World War III, but a media battle has been the main center of conflict -€“ much of it coming from a hacked phone call posted on YouTube. The voices are clear, but the tone is downhearted and dispirited. The call, in English, apparently came from EU Foreign Minister Catherine Ashton'€™s office on Feb. 26, seeking an update from Estonian For [...]

Only about a ninth of Ukrainian military personnel currently doing service in Crimea have made a decision to leave the peninsular, Russia'€™s Defense Ministry announced on Saturday. “As of March 21, less than 2,000 out of 18,000 soldiers of Ukrainian military forces, who are currently stationed in the Republic of Crimea, have wished to leave for Ukraine,” says the Ministry’s statement. [...]

Russia is not clinging to the G8 format, as all major world problems can be discussed at other international venues such as G20, Russia'€™s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said. “The G8 is an informal club, no one gives out membership cards and no one can expel members,” Lavrov told a media conference at the Hague. [...]

A new opinion poll has revealed that the majority of Germans recognize the accession of Crimea to Russia. At the same time, most of them also view the West'€™s response as appropriate. The public opinion poll was conducted by TNS Research at the request of Der Spiegel. [...]

Luke Harding: Lenin's statue still stands in Donetsk where loyalty to the old regime and Russian propaganda have inspired protests against the Kiev 'fascists'. But is this really the next Crimea? In Donetsk's main square, Ukraine's communist leader, Petro Symonenko, was giving an impromptu address to the party faithful. [...]

Recent events are both a knee-jerk reaction by Putin and a culmination of his years of grievances with the international order. When Vladimir Putin summoned the entirety of Russia's political elite to the St George's Hall of the Kremlin to announce that Russia would "welcome back" the territory of Crimea last week, the atmosphere was almost as if they were celebrating a military victory. [...]

Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko has stated that his country accepts that Crimea is now de-facto a part of Russia. "We agree with the Russian Federation on that," the leader said. “Crimea isn’t an independent state. It’s part of the Russian territory. One can recognize or not recognize that, it will change nothing,” Lukashenko told journalists in Minsk on Sunday. [...]

Belbek commander reportedly taken away by Russian troops as Obama hopes to increase Russia's isolation on upcoming Europe trip. The White House on Saturday responded cautiously to the news that Russian troops had forced their way into a Ukrainian airbase in Crimea. [...]

Western sanctions might push Russia to deepen cooperation with BRICS states, in particular, to strengthen its ties with China, which will possibly turn out to be a big catastrophe for the US and the EU some time later. On March 18, the spokesperson for the Kremlin, Dmitry Peskov, claimed in a BBC interview that Russia would switch to new partners in case of economic sanctions being imposed by the [...]

The situation has only underscored Europe'€™s divisions and exposed the chasm between the bloc'€™s high-minded aspirations and the rough reality of geopolitics. Three months on, with those same pro-European protesters now victorious but their country at risk of being dismembered by Russia, [...]

Claiming that Crimea is part of Ukraine is the same as Serbia arguing that Kosovo is not really separated from it, Gregory Copley, editor of Defense & Foreign Affairs, told RT. [...]

What is the significance of this vote? How will it affect South-Eastern Ukraine? How will China and the West react? And, what can we expect next? CrossTalking with George Galloway, Michael Hughes and Dmitry Babich. [...]

The people of Crimea have returned to Russia. Their right of self-determination has been honored. However, the west does not honor a peaceful referendum like in Crimea, and instead prefer to acknowledge the coup installed neon-fascist government of Kiev. [...]

Shortly before the planned Crimea referendum, the West has increased pressure on Russia. Those efforts could backfire, warn two experts at the Washington-based Brookings Institution. They shed light on the way Vladimir Putin views Europe as a threat. [...]

Russia’s Foreign Ministry has published a reciprocal sanctions list of US citizens, consisting of 10 names, including: House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner, Senator J. McCain; and advisers to President Obama D. Pfeiffer and C. Atkinson. [...]

The EU has imposed new sanctions to prevent Vladimir Putin from further escalating the crisis in Ukraine. Berlin has played a leading role in the punitive actions, despite protests from the German business community. There's no turning back for Merkel. [...]

The US will not get involved in a "€œmilitary excursion"€ in Ukraine, President Barack Obama said, stressing that Washington will pursue diplomatic means in the standoff with Russia over Crimea. "We are not going to be getting into a military excursion in Ukraine," Obama told San Diego’s KNSD TV. [...]

Russian president delivers speech laced with patriotic bluster and anger at west, saying Russia has been "cheated again and again." Vladimir Putin announced the annexation of Crimea on Tuesday in a searing speech to assembled political elites in Moscow shot through with angry rhetoric about western aggression and hypocrisy. [...]

Ron Paul is once again speaking up about the situation in Crimea, and this time the former congressman is condemning critics from his own country who are seemingly obsessed with the recent secession. The former Republican representative for Texas told RT earlier this month that he didn’t think the United States had any business meddling in overseas affairs and that worsening tensions in Ukraine [...]