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Tensions between Russia and Ukraine remain high this week. Just this morning, crowds waving Russian flags stormed government headquarters in the Ukrainian city of Donetsk. There were conflicting reports yesterday of a Russian deadline for Crimean armed forces to surrender or face retaliation. Sixteen thousand Russian forces have occupied the south eastern peninsula of Crimea, prompting a harsh response from the US.

President Barack Obama accused Russian president Vladimir Putin of being “on the wrong side of history.” The resulting strained ties between the US and Russia is provoking fears of a new Cold War. Secretary of State John Kerry is in Kiev this week, offering Ukraine’s fledgling new government financial and political assistance and the US, along with the EU are openly considering sanctions against Russia. In fact Kerry has announced that the US would even go as far as to launch unilateral sanctions against Russia.

Kerry is scheduled to meet with Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov today, keeping open the possibility that there may be room for negotiation.

GUESTS: Katrina Vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher of The Nation, a long time expert on US-Russia relations. She just wrote an editorial in the Washington Post entitled “The Ukraine crisis calls for less bluster, more common sense.” David Marples, Distinguished University Professor and Director of the Stasiuk Program for the Study of Contemporary Ukraine at the University of Alberta in Canada

Click here to read Katrina Vanden Heuvel’s editorial in the Washington Post.