At the United Nations Security Council session on March 3, Russian representative Vitali Churkin insisted that by increasing its military strength in Crimea to 16,000 soldiers, the Russian Federation was still way below the threshold set up by the Black Sea Fleet agreement.

Signed in 1997, the

agreement was last amended in 2010, when ousted President Viktor Yanukovych extended the Russian

fleet’s lease in Crimea to at least 2042, in exchange for a modest 10 percent discount on Russian gas imports.