Corey Flintoff

At the crash site of the Malaysia Airlines jet in eastern Ukraine, international observers are trying to keep tabs on the rebels' treatment of victims' bodies and potential evidence from the scene.

NPR Moscow correspondent Corey Flintoff, who is following the investigation into the Malaysia Airlines flight that was apparently shot down, answers questions about how it's developing.

A Malaysia Airlines flight carrying nearly 300 people has crashed in eastern Ukraine, near the Russian border. It's unclear why it crashed, but the Ukrainian president is calling for an investigation.

Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are now members of the EU and NATO, but they have painful memories of the Soviet occupation. The Baltic states are asking for a bigger NATO presence in their countries.

President Putin said he was acting to protect the rights of ethnic Russians in Crimea. Latvians fear Russia could use the Russian-speaking population to exert destabilizing pressure on their country.

Diplomats are trying to arrange a new ceasefire in eastern Ukraine. But Ukraine's president is under domestic pressure to take decisive military action against pro-Russian separatists.

The crisis in Ukraine is starting to take a psychological toll on citizens, including those who aren't near the fighting in the country's eastern provinces. Many Ukrainians say they now feel their country is at war with Russia and that they're prepared to make sacrifices for Ukraine's independence. Recent polling data shows that even in the east of the country, most people support keeping the country unified.

Ukraine's president has signed a historic trade and economic pact with the European Union, a move his predecessor rejected. The conflict that the first rejection sparked still simmers, with violence continuing in the country's east despite a shaky cease-fire.

Ukraine and Russia give different estimates of how many have been displaced by fighting in the eastern provinces, but they agree that people are being forced from their homes in battle-scarred cities.

Pro-Russian separatists in Eastern Ukraine have rejected a cease-fire plan offered by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.