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A portrait of slain separatist leader Aleksandr Zakharchenko hangs outside the Donetsk Opera and Ballet Theatre on September 2.
A portrait of slain separatist leader Aleksandr Zakharchenko hangs outside the Donetsk Opera and Ballet Theatre on September 2.

Live Blog: Ukraine In Crisis (Archive)

-- EDITOR'S NOTE: We have started a new Ukraine Live Blog as of September 3, 2018. You can find it here.

-- Tens of thousands of people gathered on September 2 in the separatist stronghold of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine to mourn a top rebel leader who was recently killed in a bomb attack.

-- Prominent Ukrainian historian Mykola Shityuk has been found dead in his home city of Mykolaiv, police said on September 2.​

-- Ukraine says it has imprisoned the man it accused of being recruited by Russia’s secret services to organize a murder plot against self-exiled Russian reporter and Kremlin critic Arkady Babchenko.

-- Ukraine and Russia are trading blame for the killing of a top separatist leader in eastern Ukraine.

-- Aleksandr Zakharchenko, the head of the head of the breakaway separatist entity known as the Donetsk People’s Republic, was killed in an explosion at a cafe in Donetsk on August 31.

-- The United States is ready to widen arms supplies to Ukraine to help build up the country's naval and air defense forces in the face of continuing Russian support for eastern separatists, the U.S. special envoy for Ukraine told The Guardian.

-- The spiritual head of the worldwide Orthodox Church in Istanbul has hosted Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill for talks on Ukraine's bid to split from the Russian church, a move strongly opposed by Moscow.

*Time stamps on the blog refer to local time in Ukraine

13:50 3.11.2017

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12:19 3.11.2017

Here's more from RFE/RL's news desk on the killing of a councilor in the Luhansk region:

City Council Member Found Dead With Broken Skull In Eastern Ukraine, Murder Probe Launched

Ukrainian councilor Serhiy Samarskiy
Ukrainian councilor Serhiy Samarskiy

Police in conflict-torn eastern Ukraine have launched a murder investigation after a city council member in the government-held Luhansk region city of Syevyerodonetsk was found dead, his skull broken.

Serhiy Samarskiy's body was found outside his apartment building shortly after midnight, regional police spokeswoman Tatyana Pohukay wrote on Facebook on November 3.

She said an investigation on suspicion of "premeditated murder" has been opened.

Syevyerdonetsk became the de-facto capital of the Luhansk region after Russia-backed separatists sezied control of the official capital, Luhansk, and several other districts in 2014.

Samarskiy, 55, was a member of President Petro Poroshenko's party. He initiated a 2015 decision by the Syevyerodonetsk city council to label Russia an aggressor country.

Syevyerodonetsk is about 50 kilometers from the front line in the conflict between government forces and the Russian-backed separatists, which has killed more than 10,000 people in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions since April 2014.

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The Serbs Fighting For Separatists In Ukraine

The Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) says there are some 300 Serbs fighting alongside Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine. They appear to motivated by a nationalist agenda stressing traditional links between Russia and Serbia. (RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service/Reuters)

The Serbs Fighting For Separatists In Ukraine
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10:08 3.11.2017

Good morning. We'll start the live blog today with a couple of the tweets that caught our eye while we were away:

21:07 2.11.2017

That concludes our live-blogging of the Ukraine crisis for Thursday, November 2, 2017. Check back here tomorrow for more of our continuing coverage. Thanks for reading and take care.

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