Here is another update from RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service
KYIV -- President Petro Poroshenko says Ukraine will remain a "unitary" state with strong central power in Kyiv and that its pursuit of integration with Europe must not be questioned.
The remarks on Unity Day sent a defiant message to Moscow in the midst of a conflict with pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.
"With unity in our minds, with a united Ukraine in our hearts, we will forever be a single Ukrainian political nation consisting of many equal ethnic groups," Poroshenko said in a televised statement on January 22.
Unity Day, long celebrated to mark a 1919 treaty, now also commemorates those killed a year ago in a crackdown on the Euromaidan protests that toppled a Russian-backed president.
Russia has called on Ukraine to cede a large measure of power to its regions, including the eastern provinces where the rebels control two capitals, in a process it calls "federalization."
Poroshenko said Ukraine "will never be federative" and that "Ukraine's state language is and will be Ukrainian."
At the same time, he said Ukraine will never prohibit people from using Russian or any other language at home, at work, or in public.
Here is an item from our news desk about the reported parading of POWs in Donetsk today, following deadly blast at a bus stop in the city:
Pro-Russian separatists on January 22 paraded captured Ukrainian soldiers in a Donetsk neighborhood where an explosion killed at least seven civilians earlier in the day.
Reports say residents hurled glass and shouted abuse at the prisoners, forcing them to their knees at a bus stop where the explosion struck a trolleybus.
Monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) who visited the site said they saw seven bodies.
Separatists and medical workers say 13 people were killed.
Moscow and Kyiv traded accusations over the blast, which witnesses said was caused by a mortar or artillery shell.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk blamed pro-Russian separatists and said Russia should bear responsibility.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov described the attack as a "monstrous new crime" by Ukrainian forces and a "crude provocation" aimed at undermining peace efforts.
Kyiv says 16 injured Ukrainian soldiers were captured on January 21 when government forces withdrew from the terminal buildings of Donetsk airport.
A battle was continuing at the airport on January 22, with Kyiv saying its troops still held parts of the facility.
(Reuters, AFP, Interfax, AP)
You may have noticed that we included tweets in this live blog earlier that contained images and videos of Ukrainian POWs who were paraded and publicly abused in Donetsk today following the deadly bus stop explosion that occured there this morning. After discussing the matter in the newsroom, we have decided to delete these tweets and not to publish any more of their ilk out of deference to the prisoners. In the future, we will only run pictures of such incidents when they have an indisputed news value and when the identities of the captives have been obscured (like this image here):
From RFE/RL's News Desk:
NATO says it intends to reestablish contact with Russian military leaders after months of tension over the conflict in eastern Ukraine.
U.S. General Philip Breedlove, NATO's top military commander, said in Brussels on January 22 that alliance officials have discussed how to "reestablish [communication] and the fact that the communication with our senior military interlocutors in Russia is important."
He said several senior NATO military leaders had decided to renew communication with Russian General Valery Gerasimov, chief of the Russian armed forces general staff.
Breedlove said he had spoken to Gerasimov even while Russian troops advanced into Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula early last year.