Another update from RFE/RL's news desk:
Russian citizens will need passports to enter Ukraine as of March 1, a change that reflects severe tensions between the neighbors amid an armed conflict in eastern Ukraine.
On February 3, Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk signed a decree supporting a government resolution on the issue adopted on January 30.
Since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, Russian citizens have been able to enter Ukraine using domestic identification documents known as internal passports.
Yatsenyuk told the government that Ukraine must "adopt European rules for crossing the state border, including for citizens of the Russian Federation."
Russia seized control of Ukraine's Crimea region in March, and Kyiv says Moscow has sent thousands of troops across the border to fight alongside separatists in a conflict that has killed more than 5,350 people in eastern Ukraine since April.
(UNIAN, kmu.gov.ua)
From RFE/RL's News Desk:
NATO says Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg will soon meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov for the first time since Stoltenberg became chief of the Western alliance on October 1.
NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu said on February 3 that Stoltenberg and Lavrov will hold bilateral talks during a three-day annual security conference in Munich that begins on February 6.
Russia's annexation of Crimea and the conflict in Ukraine have brought tensions between Russia and NATO to their highest point since the Cold War.
The fighting has escalated in recent weeks and the United Nations said on February 3 that at least 5,358 people have been killed in the conflict since it erupted in April.
Stoltenberg will also hold bilateral meetings with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and others attending the conference.
Just in from RFE/RL's News Desk:
Ukrainian officials have denied claims by pro-Russian separatists in the eastern Luhansk region that they have shot down two Ukrainian military jets.
A spokesman for Ukraine's military, Oleksandr Motuzyanyk, rejected the claims on February 3, saying separatists "had not shot down any Ukrainian plane, either today or yesterday."
Motuzyanyk's statement came hours after the leader of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic, Igor Plotnitsky, claimed forces under his control downed a Ukrainian SU-25 jet, which is used to provide close air support for ground troops.
Plotnitsky said the pilot ejected before the plane crashed near the town of Irmino.
Earlier, pro-Russian separatists who control parts of the eastern region of Donetsk claimed they shot down another Ukrainian military plane near the government-controlled town of Debaltseve.
VIDEO: The town of Debaltseve has been caught in the crossfire between Ukrainian military forces and separatist fighters for more than two weeks. Many residents have fled, and those who remain are struggling to survive as food supplies dwindle and the fighting draws closer. (Produced by Zinaida Burskaya for RFE/RL's Current Time program)
