Ministers from the United States, European Union, Russia, and Ukraine will meet next weeks for talks aimed at an escalation of the crisis in Ukraine.  It will be the first four-way meeting since the crisis erupted and will give an indication if there is even a diplomatic road to take before the situation gets even worse.

The participants will be EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, US Secretary of State John Kerry, his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, and Ukraine's Foreign Minister Andriy Deshchytsia. 

This comes after Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in February, and has thousands of troops poised on its border with Eastern Ukraine.  On Tuesday, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Moscow must pull withdraw.

“I urge Russia to step back and not escalate the situation in east Ukraine,” Rasmussen said.

Just over the border in Eastern Ukraine, pro-Russian agitators tried to take control of several key government buildings in four cities, declared independence from Kiev, and asked Moscow to have “peacekeeper” troops standing by.  Kerry blamed Russian agents working in Ukraine.

“Everything that we’ve seen in the last 48 hours from Russian provocateurs and agents operating in eastern Ukraine tells us that they’ve been sent there determined to created chaos,” Kerry said while testifying before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee.  “Russia’s clear and unmistakable involvement in destabilizing and engaging in separatist activities in the eastern Ukraine is more than deeply disturbing.”

But it seems apparent there couldn’t be a nation more easily divided than Ukraine.  Earlier, parliament deputies brawled when Communist leader Petro Symonenko accused the nationalist and anti-Semitic Svoboda Party of playing into the hands of Russia by adopting extreme tactics early in the Ukrainian crisis.  As Symonenko spoke, the nationalists demonstrated their dedication to free speech and storming the rostrum and forcing the speaker from the microphone.  And, fists of fury after that.