Should Nato intervene in the escalating crisis between Russia & Ukraine?

Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine's ambassador at large, hopes the West won't leave Ukraine to stand alone. As Russian troops spill across the border, the pressure is on NATO to do something, while remaining mindful of Montgomery's first rule of War: Don't march on Moscow.

We are in a kind of a trap because what the Russian situation is doing, they are provoking us to actually admit the fact that we are in a state of war with Russia. What is happening now is an assault on world order. Russia is trying to draw Ukraine and the rest of the world into a war, into a full scale war that will allow it to de-construct the existing order. So we have to act shoulder to shoulder and stop Russian aggression.Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine's Ambassador at Large

Ukraine's Ambassador at Large, Dmytro Kuleba, urges the world to help -- warning that the Russian threat can easily slip beyond Ukraine's borders. But if he was hoping the West would rattle its sabres, he must have been disappointed with yesterday's statement from the U-S president. Barack Obama blames Russia for the aggression and is considering expanding sanctions. But he didn't answer the call to arms.

A Reuters reporter saw on Thursday a column of armoured vehicles, driving through the Russian steppe just across the border from a part of Ukraine which Kiev says is occupied by Russian troops. None of the men or vehicles had standard military identification marks, but the reporter saw a Mi-8 helicopter with a red star insignia -- consistent with Russian military markings. (Reuters/Maria Tsvetkova)

• NATO releases satellite imagery showing Russian combat troops inside Ukraine -- NATO

We are not taking military action to solve the Ukrainian problem. What we're doing is to mobilize the international community to apply pressure on Russia. And we will continue to stand firm with our allies and partners that what is happening is wrong, that there is a solution that allows Ukraine and Russia to live peacefully but it is not in the cards to for us to see a military confrontation between Russia and the United States in this region.Barack Obama, U.S. President

• Full transcript: Remarks by Ambassador Samantha Power, U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations -- Washington Post

Diplomats and politicians debate what to do about the crisis. In Ukraine, there's a growing fear that a bloody war has returned. This morning, the United Nations says 2,600 people have been killed since fighting erupted. It includes Ukrainian civilians and soldiers as well as Russian separatist fighters. And that number has gone up by 400 in just the past two weeks.

• Alec Luhn is freelance journalist who goes back and forth between Ukraine and Russia. This morning he was in Ukraine en route to the city of Mariupol.

Yesterday the UN Security Council held an emergency session to discuss the chaos in Ukraine and today NATO envoys will hold an emergency meeting.

To help us understand how the international community might respond to the crisis, we spoke to two guests:

• Bessma Momani is the Senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation and an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Waterloo.
• Steve Levineis the Washington Correspondent for Quartz and author of Putin's Labyrinth: Spies, Murder, and the Dark Heart of the New Russia.

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This segment was produced by The Current's Sarah Grant, Lara O'Brien and Ines Colabrese.