Russia says Crimea deployments based on agreements with Ukraine

Russia’s UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin says that Russian military movements in Crimea are in keeping with Moscow’s existing arrangement with Ukraine. “We have an agreement with Ukraine on the presence of the Russian Black Sea fleet with a base in Sevastopol, and we are acting within the framework of that agreement,” he told reporters after a closed-door meeting of the UN Security Council. “The best way to resolve the crisis is to look hard again at the February 21 agreement. And try to do things the way they were described there. They need to have a constitutional dialogue and process of forming a new constitution, they need to refrain from conducting a hasty presidential election. They need to stop trying to intimidate other regions and other political forces,” continued Churkin. He neither confirmed nor denied the specifics of any Russian military movements in Crimea.