Major News

-- The United Nations Security Council has scheduled an emergency meeting today on the invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces. The meeting comes after Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko said Russia had deployed forces in eastern Ukraine.

 

-- A NATO military officer says the alliance believes "more than 1,000 Russian troops" are operating inside Ukraine. "They are supporting separatists [and] fighting with them," the officer, who wished to remain anonymous, told reporters in Mons, Belgium. He said it's conceivable that Moscow could create a land bridge to the Crimea Peninsula, which it annexed in March, via the southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol.

 

-- Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council says on Twitter that Russian troops have seized control of the border town of Novoazovsk. The town's mayor earlier said that pro-Russian fighters had entered the town with support from dozens of armored vehicles.  

 

-- French President Francois Hollande said it would be "intolerable and unacceptable" if Russian troops were operating on Ukrainian territory, as Western and Ukrainian officials have charged. 

 

-- U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki says reports from eastern and southeastern Ukraine "indicate that a Russian-directed counteroffensive is likely under way" in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.