Ukraine: Latest Updates From Sevastopol And Kiev

The headlines out of Ukraine continue to veer wildly from armed international crisis to uneasy diplomatic truce, so it can be hard to nail out the details as you move through the day.

Fortunately, we had two fantastic reporters bring us up-to-the-minute briefings on the tense situation in the Crimean seaport of Sevastopol and the diplomatic roundabout at work in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, where U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has arrived pledging financial and moral support for the embattled interim government.

In Sevastopol, a large Black Sea port city where the Russian Navy has a long-term lease on docking facilities for part of its fighting force, Wall Street Journal reporter Margaret Coker told us that "there's a definitive Russian military presence in the city."

"The Russians have sort of come out from the shadows, they're here on the streets and it's sort of tense here," Coker told us.

Further north, in the Ukrainian capital city of Kiev, Bloomberg News reporter Indira Lakshmanan told us that the U.S. is actively considering sanctions against Russia. "Sanctions could be ready within a matter of days if Putin does not back down," Lakshmanan said.

"The U.S. would consider the annexation of Crimea to be an act of war, we were told," she said.

What's the best way forward for the U.S. in this tense military-diplomatic standoff with Russia?
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