President Obama, in his annual address to the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday, cited "the cancer of violent extremism" in the Middle East as the single issue that could derail future global progress, and said six years into his presidency that the world is at a crossroads. He specifically called on Muslim communities in the region to confront the threat of extremism and reject such ideology.
Satellite images released by NATO show Russian forces operating within the borders of Ukraine's sovereign territory. Dutch Brigadier General Nico Tak gave a sobering assessment of the escalating offensive in a press conference Thursday.
Two columns of tanks and military vehicles rolled into southeastern Ukraine from Russia on Thursday after Grad missiles were fired at a border post and Ukraine's overmatched border guards fled, a top Ukrainian official said. Echoing the comments by Ukraine's Col. Andriy Lysenko, a top NATO official said at least 1,000 Russian troops have poured into Ukraine with sophisticated equipment, leaving no doubt that the Russian military had invaded southeastern Ukraine.
Citing Russia's stalled growth rate and a flow of foreign capital out of Moscow, U.S. and European officials hope a new round of sanctions targeting energy and defense entities, as well as major banks, will deepen Russia's economic pain even further and force President Vladimir Putin to end provocations in Ukraine. Roughly 30 percent of Russia's banking sector assets are now constrained by U.S. sanctions, Obama administration officials said, shortly after announcing new penalties.
Dutch and Australian governments are sending military presence with crash investigators to keep the MH17 crash site secure, dubbing the effort a "police-led humanitarian mission."
"A buildup of extraordinary circumstantial evidence ... it's powerful here," said Secretary of State John Kerry, a former prosecutor, and it holds Russian-supported rebels in eastern Ukraine responsible for shooting down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, with the Kremlin complicit in the deaths of nearly 300 passengers and crew members. "This is the moment of truth for Russia," said Kerry, leveling some of Washington's harshest criticism of Moscow since the crisis in Ukraine began.
Struggling to defuse the persistent crisis in Ukraine, both the U.S. and European Union imposed new economic sanctions on Russia Wednesday, with President Barack Obama declaring that Russian leaders must see that their actions supporting rebels "have consequences."
Russia is harboring Ukrainian separatists, and allowing attacks from their side of the border, a Ukraine government official claimed Friday. There are also reports of Russian troops massing just outside Ukraine's border.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine President-Elect Petro Poroshenko met briefly Friday for what could be the beginnings of a tense truce between the two nations. Putin went so far as to praise Poroshenko for his commitment to peace in eastern Ukraine.
Russia on Monday granted Ukraine another week before it will start demanding prepayment for gas, without which it has threatened to cut off supplies. The announcement by Russia's state gas company Gazprom came at the outset of a second round of European Union-mediated talks aimed at resolving the two countries' dispute over gas prices and outstanding debt.
