Ukraine Requests Peacekeepers as Crackdown in East Begins
Top News: Ukraine's interim president, Oleksander Turchinov, announced that the government had initiated a crackdown on pro-Russian separatists fomenting unrest in the country's east, but government forces have yet to try to retake occupied government buildings. The Kiev government on Monday requested support from U.N. peacekeepers to minimize violence, but the deployment of peacekeepers would have to be approved by the U.N. Security Council, where Russia would have the option to veto the decision. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov encouraged Kiev to show restraint ahead of diplomatic talks in Geneva on Thursday.
President Barack Obama and President Vladimir Putin spoke by phone on Monday, but appear to have made little headway to resolving the impasse; the Kremlin and White House issued conflicting readouts of the call, with the White House stressing U.S. demands that Putin pressure separatists to withdraw from government buildings and the Kremlin denying involvement in eastern Ukrainian protests. A Russian jet made at least 12 low, aggressive passes against the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Donald Cook in the Black Sea, but neither the plane nor the ship fired at each other.
Journalism: Reporters at the Washington Post and the Guardian were
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