TODAY: Poroshenko begins Russia peace talks, is defiant on Crimea; Russia and China in agreement on West’s involvement, says Security Council; China deal could affect Japan; the return of Stalingrad? Psaki mocked on state television; Greenpeace vessel released.

Ukraine’s newly sworn-in President Petro Poroshenko has already begun peace talks with Russia and the OSCE,  having promised during his inaugural speech to maintain peace in his country. ‘Citizens of Ukraine will never enjoy the beauty of peace unless we settle our relations with Russia,’ he said, but added the combative caveat that Crimea would always be ‘Ukrainian soil’. The New York Times urges the West not to lose ‘a sense of outrage over Russia’s illegal armed seizure of the Crimean peninsula’.  The Guardian says Russia’s infringement into Ukraine has rattled Belarus, and that it fears it could be next.  A refugee who fled Luhansk for Kiev says the region is under the control of Russian terrorists, but Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of the Security Council, says Russia and China are in agreement that the Ukraine crisis is the result of a consistent ‘Western policy to remove the authorities that they find disagreeable’; indeed the two countries share similar views ‘on all issues of the international agenda’, he says.  Russia’s recent $400 billion gas supply deal with China could have unwittingly positive effects on Japan, says Reuters.