the way russia got itself engaged in over the border inside ukraine. i ve talked today with the foreign minister from latvia, the prime minister from estonia, baltic states on the front line with russia. i asked them about their concerns about president trump meeting with president putin and they said look, as long as he goes in firm and as long as he s clear that anecking crimea is illegal slorngs he says getting involved in ukraine cannot be done they re going to feel comfortable with that but at the same time these leaders felt that while president trump was saying in a way that president obama and president bush hadn t done on this 2% of gdp, they did feel that that was an important message to amp up. but i guess my take away and i spoke a member of the romanian
much more on the mystery of flight 370. the two sides in the fight for the future of ukraine with pens. moments after the russian parliament passed the treaty, a necking crimea. vladimir putin signed it and they take ownership. in response, they signed a trade agreement with the european union. it was a dispute over closer ties that led to the current crisis. the crisis is growing more tense as russia tightens the grip. they show forces breaking through a gate of a ukrainian military base. no reports of shots fired. joining us now, he is in crimea.
she was very concerned that the russian parliament was debating a bill about a necking crimea. fully understanding as she put it the balance of power between russia and ukraine, no match for the russians and any military confrontation ended up in disaster for ukraine. they needed to stop russia grabbing crimea. it s given to russia and when russia is allowed to take away crimea. the world will change and not only politics and in ukraine has changed, politics and has changed practically everywhere in the world and have to accept to state that in 21st century, one country.
i teach history here at stanford. i know that on the cusp of crisis in the beginning, people think this assassination here, this act here is going to stop with that. i would remind everyone that there lots of unintended consequences when you have armed men staring at each other in places like you do in crimea. i think we all need to be vigilant and it s in no one s interest, not russia s and europe and not the united states and certainly not in the interest of the people of the ukraine to see an all out civil war in the heart of europe and 50 million people. troubling times here. i appreciate your perspective. cnn military analyst is joining us.
russia does not want crimea has part of russia proper? what russia wants, we have to be careful. let s talk about putin and what others have. my reading of the situation and i just was in moscow working last week meeting with government officials there. that president putin was frustrated by the way that the february 21st agreement fell apart. many officials expressed to their disappointment that the president was so weak and did not have order. this was the immediate first response to go into crimea and say we will be an actor and a player. i don t think they decided what their end game is. i don t think putin himself knows whether he wants to use this to negotiate a different term in terms of what the composition of the next government of ukraine might be. whether he decided he wants to try to take crimea as a piece for russia.