Just this morning there was an assault at a weapons depot in crimea where armed men attacked a military base. We are going to try to understand it as it comes in. Officially thousands of Russian Troops have ousted Ukrainian Forces and taken complete control of crimea. Ukraine is in yellow, crimea in red. Crimea is so key to russia. Just ten miles separate russia from crimea, but theres a lot of history there, there have been famous battles there, crimeans have been at odds with russia. And the white house has been holding emergency meetings, and the u. S. Just one of the countries threatening to skip the g8 summit. We have the crisis covered around the world for you this morning, starting in ukraine. Diana . Reporter hi. Well, we hear from the Ukrainian Naval commander recently appointed because of the defection of the previous head of the navy, thats ten ukrainian or military bases on crimea have now been taken. Also, these attacks on border posts along the east. Now none of these men have any kind of military insignia on their uniforms but its pretty clear who they are. Ukraines military is on high alert this morning, according to u. S. And ukrainian officials, thousands of Russian Ground and naval forces occupy the Crimean Peninsula will troops surrounding several bases and demanding Ukrainian Forces surrender and hand over their weapons. The Ukrainian Military is calling on troops to report for duty immediately. The Prime Minister fierce a wide are invasion by russia. Ukraine ambassador to the u. N. Says his country needs military support. But nato is pushing for peaceful diplomacy. We urge all parties to urgently continue all efforts to move away from this dangerous situation. I call on russia to deescalate tensions. Reporter putin is arguing that russia is only trying to protect russianspeaking people and its interests in the region, including a valuable naval base. Outrage over russias move is mounting, as western nations accuse mr. Putin of violating International Law and ignoring warnings not to intervene. You just dont invade another country on phony pretext in order to assert your interests. Reporter crimea remains a stronghold of opposition to the new leadership in ukraine. This embattled semiautonomous region near the border representing a country divided. In the east and in crimea, which belonged to russia until 1954, some want to rejoin their soviet roots. Tensions in this eastwest standoff over the future of ukraine now have the country teetering on the brink of disaster. And simferopol is calm where i am, pretty much business as usual, those locals tell us there are fewer people on the streets as normal. There does feel as though there is a war of information going on here between those who watch russian tv and those who get their news from the west, accentuating these divisions. As we move down to the Crimean Peninsula, this is certainly a crisis. While it is specifically about ukraine sovereignty, theres unquestionably an overlay of a power struggle between east and west and the u. S. And russia. Secretary of state john kerry is preparing to go to kiev in a so of solidarity. What is the next move in the conflict . Michelle joins us now, an important day to be there. Reporter secretary of state kerry travels there tonight. Officials here saying putin badly miscalculated, a terrible choice that will only leave russia severely isolated if this continues. The secretary of state is preparing for an emergency trip to the center of the crisis. It comes after president obama and his National Security team worked through the weekend on the dangerous escalating situation in ukraine. The president spoke by phone with leaders of canada, france, germany, poland, the u. K. After an hour and a half call with Vladimir Putin himself. Senior Administration Officials say obama flatly rejected putins reasons for entering ukraine and taking over crimea, telling him to back out but also offering ways forward through dialogue or international monitors to make sure the russianspeaking people there are protected under ukraines new government. Secretary of state john kerry didnt hold back on russians move. Its a continuing act of aggression. Its a stunning, willful choice by president putin to invade another country. Its a 19th century act in the 21st century. Reporter russias ambassador comes after ukraines president was ousted last month in the wake of a bloody street protest after his rejection of a plan. Now the administration has cancelled trade talks with russia and with several allies has backed out of meetings leading to the g8 summit in sochi in june. All this has also drawn strong criticism from some lawmakers of president obamas drawing a line, telling putin to respect ukraines sovereignty to which putin quickly crossed. For all of the work here, though, it seems that maybe germany now has found the offramp to russias course saying russia has accepted its proposal to establish a Fact Finding Mission to ukraine and start a dialogue. Kate . Well see what that really means in practice. Michelle, thanks and welcome to cnn. Great to see you. Thank you. Russians Prime Minister saying sunday that the ukrainian president s ouster made the region extremely unstable and could lead to new blood in his words. Lets get to phil black in moscow with that new angle. Phil, whats the latest from moscow . Reporter good morning. Amid all the International Criticism of russia, russia is claiming support from a fairly Significant International power, china. Foreign ministers from the two countries thorn spoke after which russia says their views coincide on the issue of ukraine. A later statement from Chinese ForeignMinistry Says that they still respect the territorial n integrity of ukraine but understand why the events on the ground are unfolding as they are. Its not an endorsement of russias actions but it is not a criticism either. Difficult to imagine a scenario where it gives up crimea to ukraine. It at least raises the possibility of a further military incursion into that Eastern Region of ukraine. The key question now is how far is russia prepared to take this . That is the question. There are so factors that go into the calculation. We have with us National Security chief correspondent jim sciutto. Theres so many policies and cultures. It seems far away but it isnt. Ukraine is in europe, kiev is miles away from rome, paris, london, that kind of thing and we have u. S. Allies just to the west, poland, slovakia, hungary, romania. The u. S. Is required to defend these countries militarily if they come under threat. Crimea, appropriately colored red. Why . Because it has that pull toward russia. Russia, right on the tip of russia, its the headquarters of their black sea fleet, their on warm water port, all of the ports up here are cold, they dont have access to them in the winter. This is key. Its key when those thousands of Russian Troops moved into crimea, it where they went. People will remember this place throughout history. You had famous things happening here as part of its separation, we were talking earlier, florence nightingale. Thats right, long ties between this part of the world and seems a million miles away in europe. The charge of the light brigade back in the 1850s. This went against the wrong front there and it proved very costly. We look at the country. Its a sovereign, its its own country but very divided how . Heres the eastern part of the country on the russian side of the bored are, deep red. More than 75 are ethnic russian, speak russian. And many in this part of the country feel that historical tie to russia, they want to be closer to russia but its not all black and white. Crimea is deep red but 40 of the people there are not russian. You got divisions in every city, in every town and every village in this country and thats a real volatile mix. A little unusually sympathetic in crimea because what ukraine separated from the European Union, only 35 in favor. Heres how it divided up. 50 to 75 of the prorussia east voted for yanukovych. Here, 50 voted for yulia tymoshenko. The president said last week this is not a cold war chess game but were seeing it play out here, the pull between east and west. Ukraine was part of the u. S. S. R. Until the fall of the wall. Its key to u. S. Interests. Remember all those allies here. Its not something we can imagine is a million miles away. Complicated yet very relatable. We appreciate you laying it out for us. Well have you on later on to take us through the specifics. The next story were watching here at home, the winter weary u. S. Getting slammed once given. A monster storm leaving coast to coast is leaving a trail of ice, sleet and know in its wake. Schools in several major cities are closed for the day and several thousand flights already cancelled the worst of the storm is sp expected to hit the d. C. Area. I know, indra, its been changing in the overnight areas. How is it looking now . Its amazing how quickly were talking about changing. Were seeing the wintry mix and primarily a switch over to show. A few hours ago we were talking about rain and freezing rain. We had a lot of icing across the area. Now the concern, of course, is that temperatures will be cooling off as we go throughout the day. Many places will have highs in the Early Morning hours and temperatures could drop 30 degrees over the next few hours and another foot of snow, hard to believe, making aim here in the midatlantic this morning. A nasty mix of Winter Weather spanning a whopping two dozen states is wreaking havoc for 90 million pop. People. The snowstorm forcing federal offices in washington to close this morning in preparation for up to 10 inches of the snow. On capitol hill, the house and senate postponing all votes until tuesday. The Nations Capital hit hard two weeks ago buried under a massive snowstorm that dumbped more than a foot of snow in a few hours. Kansas city, missouri socked with whipping wind, snow and ice. Singledigit temperatures could be the lowest ever recorded for march. Firefighter himself to pry a man from this car that skid and crashed. Illinois got hammered with another thunder and sleet to create whiteout conditions, making driving nearly impossible. Plows worked feverishly to keep up with the ice. In colorado, this pileup killed one and injured dozens. Everything was fiend and we werent going that fast and all of a sudden everything just went out of control. And in montana, an avalanche powerful enough to rip this house from its foundation, dozens safely digging out an 8yearold boy and two others. Kate, i was showing you these puddles on the ground earlier. Theres a reason im showing you this. Were talking about warmer air first, rain and then now snow. The reason thats so important, the roads. If you have rain first, they couldnt pretreat these roads with salt. Now that the storm is on its way, they have to go out and salt those road. Were talking about potentially another foot of snow, the bulls eye being the d. C. Area, all of maryland and out towards virginia. This is hard to believe because just two weeks ago we were talking about the system that brought six inches to a foot of snow across this area as being the biggest snowstorm in three years. The fact that woor having another one, a lot of concern in the region today. The system did shift farther to the south. If youre around new york city and not seeing the snow you thought you were expecting, this is the storm we were tracking all the way from california and the models brought it a little more south. Were still talking about the wintry mix around the carolinas. All of this should push out by the time we go through this evening. Thats the good news. But the cold air means any snow is going to stick around for a while, guys. Some good news there. All those cold temperatures there back, just like you expected, indra. Well check back with you. President obama is meeting with israeli Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu at the white house. Irans Nuclear Programs are expected to be discussed. Netanyahu is address the American Israel Public Affairs process in washington. 75yearold john short is say cust of secretly spreading religious material, thats a crime in north korea. But north korea is Still Holding american conditioneth ekenneth. Its reported bae was conducting missionary work there. Breaking news from south africa thorn, Oscar Pistorius pleading not guilty to murder charges. His trial is now under way but the court is on a break. He says his mistook his girl friend for an intruder. Prosecutors say he shot her after a heated argument. He faces life in prison if convicted. They call it the trial of century in south africa. When we come back, were going to get back into the ukraine. The crisis is deepening, the world is on edge and once given Vladimir Putin seems to be setting the jaagenda. What can be done in the conflict. Christian amanpour is here to break it down for us. And well be looking at who took oscar home. Well have all the highlights for you. Let it go, let it go, turn away and slam the door i dont care what theyre going to say neutrogena healthy skin liquid makeup. 98 saw improved skin. Does your makeup do that . Neutrogena® cosmetics. [ sneezes ] [ male announcer ] you may be an allergy muddler. Try zyrtec® for powerful allergy relief. And zyrtec® is different than claritin® because it starts working faster on the first day you take it. Zyrtec®. Love the air. [ sneezes ] on the first day you take it. So our business can be on at ts network for 175 a month . Yup. All 5 of you for 175. Our clients need a lot of attention. Theres unlimited talk and text. Were working deals all day. You get 10 gigabytes of data to share. What about expansion potential . Add a line, anytime, for 15 a month. Low dues, great terms. Lets close new at t mobile share value plans our best value plans ever for business. With the stunts and loud explosions and all the muscles. [ as cosby ] i want to see the comedy programming with the children. [ british accent] watch bravo yeah, i want to see the real housewives. Rewind yeah jimmy . Its been hours. We told you the x1 entertainment operating system show me the tonight show starring jimmy fallon. Thats what im talking about right there. [ cheers and applause ] [ female announcer ] control your tv with your voice. The x1 entertainment operating system. Only from xfinity. Let it go, let it go welcome back to new day. I know youre singing along. That is the song from frozen, let it go. Coming to you from Beverly Hills, were live at the montage hotel. I sort of feel like i should be whispering. Folks are slowly trickling in from the parties happening ofve the evening. If you watched it at home, you were seeing a lot of folks in the audience having a great time laughing. It was an historic night. We saw the usual lineup of famous faces in the audience. It was really the night for newcome newcomers. There was laughter, tears and emotion in the show. Dont forget those memorable speeches. And the oscar goes to it was a night full of inspirational speeches. When you got god, you got a friend and that friend is you. The magnetic Matthew Mcconaughey winning best actor and his costar, jared leto winning best supporting actor. For those of you who have ever felt injustice because of who you are and who you love, tonight i stand here with you. Lupita nyongo named best supporting actress for her powerful performance. When i look down at this golden statue, may it remind me and every little child that no matter where youre from, your dreams are valid. And lighthearted kacate blanche blanchett. Julia hash tag suck it. You know what i mean . And 12 years a slave. We all get to stand up here tonight because of one man who brought us all together to tell his story, mr. Steve mcqueen. Mcqueen is the first black director to win best motion picture. I dedicate this award to all the people who have endured slavery. It was also a night of wild star antics. Alisters shaking and shimmying to pharrells performance of happy. Host Ellen Degeneres snap be this celebrity selfie, gaining millions of retweets and even crashing twitter servers. Pizzas here. The comedian even handing out pizza. Kerrey washington is pregnant, she needs some. The allstar night was packed with singers. Bette midlers wind beneath my wings. And pinks rendition of somewhere over the rainbow. But it was sydney poitier that wowed the crowd. Please keep up the tremendous work. If you watched the stars in those front few row, this were having a great time between the pizza and the selfie with ellen. The show clocked in at about three and a half hours. Spike lee said he felt the show moved along really fast. We agree. Some had a better night than ever. Talk about the folks from gravity, they scored eight oscars. And 12 years a slave garnering best picture. Overall i gave it two thumbs up. Live here in Beverly Hills, its very early at the montage but if we see stars coming through, well try to grab them. If you see them coming through, there will be a sevensecond delay because theyre just ending their evening. Have you seen this gold thing . I set it down for one second to get my other cocktail. We were talking about it when michaelas piece was running, we both thought that ellen did a great job last night. We thought she channelled bob hope. Theres a pleasantry and intimacy. She did good, though. And coming up, the sudden death playoff in golf but it what happened before. Tiger woods quit the tournament supposedly with a back injury. What do we know . This is not the start to the pga season tiger woods is looking for, off to his worst start