UN holds Ukraine talks as EU ramps up pressure on Russia

The UN Security Council has scheduled an open meeting on the crisis in Ukraine.

Luxembourg's UN Ambassador Sylvie Lucas, the current council president, announced that the UN's most powerful body would meet at 3:30 p.m. ET today.

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has announced an emergency meeting on Ukraine for Tuesday, following a request from Poland. (Francois Lenoir/Reuters)

It will be the third meeting of the Security Council since Friday, when Russia planes and troops started moving into Crimea.

The council meetings on Friday and Saturday were partly open. Monday's public meeting will give the 15 council members, and possibly the broader UN membership, an opportunity to speak.

Russia, which has veto power, would almost certainly block any council action condemning its intervention. But the public meeting will allow countries representing all areas of the world to express their views on the Ukraine crisis.

Meanwhile, European Union leaders called a special summit for Thursday, where they are expected to freeze visa liberalization and economic co-operation talks with Russia if Moscow hasn't taken steps to calm the crisis in Ukraine's Crimean peninsula.

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EU foreign ministers said they also have stopped preparation for the G8 summit, which is set for June in the Russian resort of Sochi.

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said the EU would give Russia until Thursday to show clear signs of goodwill, including a willingness to open talks and a withdrawal of Russian troops to their barracks in Crimea.

"The ambition is to see the situation improve. If it doesn't, then the course is set," Ashton said after the foreign ministers' meeting.

She said she will meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Tuesday in Madrid.

The ambassadors of NATO's 28 member nations will hold a second emergency meeting on Ukraine Tuesday after Poland invoked an article calling for consultations when a nation sees its "territorial integrity, political independence or security threatened," the alliance said in a statement.

At the EU meeting, many foreign ministers stressed the immediate focus should be on diplomacy and promoting direct dialogue between Russia and the new leadership in Ukraine.

The EU is Russia's biggest trading partner, and Russia is the EU's third-largest partner, mostly thanks to exports of raw materials such as oil and gas.

Economic sanctions would hurt all sides, said Dutch Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans.

"Those consequences will be bad for everyone, but for Russia they will be far worse than for the EU. We can target other markets if we have to. [Russia] will have trouble to quickly find other customers," he said.