On peace for our time – Anton Troianovski, David E. Sanger and Michael Crowley in NYT:

‘With Russian troops massing along Ukraine’s borders, American and Russian diplomats made clear after an intense round of negotiations on Monday that while the two sides would keep talking, they remain far from agreement on meeting each other’s security concerns.
Russian officials said they told their American counterparts they had no plans to invade Ukraine, in a series of talks that lasted nearly eight hours. “There is no reason to fear some kind of escalatory scenario,” Sergei A. Ryabkov, a Russian deputy foreign minister, told reporters after the meeting.
“The talks were difficult, long, very professional, deep, concrete, without attempts to gloss over some sharp edges,” Mr. Ryabkov said. “We had the feeling that the American side took the Russian proposals very seriously and studied them deeply.” Wendy Sherman, the lead American diplomat, said the United States was “pushing back on security proposals that are simply non-starters for the United States,” including Russia’s demands that Ukraine not be admitted into NATO, and that the alliance end its security cooperation with Ukraine.
“We will not allow anyone to slam closed NATO’s open door policy, which has always been central to the NATO alliance,” Ms. Sherman said on a conference call with reporters. “We will not forgo bilateral cooperation with sovereign states that wish to work with the United States. And we will not make decisions about Ukraine without Ukraine, about Europe without Europe, or about NATO without NATO.” Both sides tamped down any expectations for a diplomatic breakthrough.
“Today was a discussion, a better understanding of each other and each other’s priorities,” Ms. Sherman said. “It was not what we would call a negotiation.” The tone of the talks “makes one more optimistic,” Mr. Ryabkov said, “but the main questions are still up in the air, and we don’t see an understanding from the American side of the necessity of a decision in a way that satisfies us.”’

Read the article here.

For now, we can say it’s official: the threat of an invasion was just an attempt to coax the US into concessions.

Nobody is talking about Crimea anymore.
In order to come across as reasonable all you need to do is making ludicrous demands, then back down a bit and you are reasonable.
Also and needless to say, Putin is no Hitler, who is? He is an average dictator, killing is for him more a necessity than his favorite pastime.

I'm also curious when Ukraine will have a say about its own future, or will the USA once again do the talking for the country? See also under: peace negations between the USA and the Taliban.