Here's an item on the Yanukovych trial from RFE/RL's news desk:
Poroshenko Calls Russia 'Aggressor' In Yanukovych Trial
During testimony at his ousted predecessor's treason trial, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has called Russia "an aggressor country" that planned "a well-coordinated hybrid war against Ukraine."
In video-link testimony at Viktor Yanukovych's trial, Poroshenko said that, in February 2014, when Yanukovych fled to Russia in the face of pro-European protests, Moscow implemented its plan to seize Ukraine's Crimea region and instigate separatism in Ukraine’s eastern regions of Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Odesa, Luhansk, and Donetsk.
"Crimea's annexation was part of Russia's hybrid war against Ukraine," Poroshenko said, adding that he traveled to Crimea in late February 2014 and witnessed how the Russian military was annexing the peninsula.
"Tens of thousands of Russian military personnel that were stationed in Sevastopol [a Black Sea port in Crimea], and tens of thousands of Russian military personnel from inner Russia were involved in the operation to seize the Ukrainian territory," Poroshenko said.
He also said he was not able to come to the courtroom and was testifying via a video-link on February 21 due to his "busy schedule and important state issues."
Answering a question from a defense lawyer about an agreement on a peaceful solution to the political crisis signed at the time by Yanukovych and the Ukrainian opposition, Poroshenko said he had never seen that document and was not present when it was signed.
'Unfolding Aggression'
Poroshenko added that he had voted for the transfer of presidential powers from the "missing" Yanukovych to then Parliament Speaker Oleksandr Turchynov.
"In the face of the unfolding aggression against our country, we had to do something, as Yanukovych was absent, unreachable. His whereabouts were unknown, and we could not just sit and wait and see what was going to happen.
"The challenges our country was facing then were serious and we were responsible for the nation, for Ukraine's future generations," Poroshenko said.
After the defense tried to challenge Poroshenko several times with questions about the legitimacy of Yanukovych's powers being transferred to Turchynov in February 2014, the judge stopped the questioning, saying that the attorneys' questions were unrelated to the essence of the case.
The Ukrainian protests known as Euromaidan began in November 2013, when demonstrators gathered in central Kyiv after Yanukovych announced he was postponing plans to sign an Association Agreement with the European Union and would seek closer economic ties with Russia.
Ukrainian prosecutors say 104 people were killed and 2,500 injured in the protests that centered on Kyiv's Maidan Nezalezhnosti -- Independence Square.
Shunning a Western-backed and Russian-backed deal with the opposition to end the standoff, Yanukovych abandoned power and fled Kyiv on February 21, 2014.
The former president, who took refuge in Russia, denies ordering police to fire on protesters and claims the violence was a "planned operation" to overthrow his government.
Moscow responded to his downfall by seizing control of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in March 2014 and fomenting separatism across much of the country -- one of the causes of a war that has killed more than 10,300 people in eastern Ukraine since April 2014 and displaced more than 1.6 million Ukrainians.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv said on February 21 that Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan, who is in Ukraine, had visited a memorial on Independence Square that is dedicated to the "Heavenly Hundred" -- a name commonly used to refer to those who died during the Maidan protests.
Sullivan is due to meet with Poroshenko, Prime Minister Volodymyr Hroysman, and Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin in Kyiv later on February 21.
Sullivan "will stress the importance of Ukraine expeditiously implementing credible economic and anti-corruption reforms and will underscore U.S. support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity," the State Department said in a statement on February 20.
And there he is, testifying via video link:
Good news (sort of) for the businessman and member of parliament who has been wanted by Ukrainian police since 2015 to face charges of fraud and enrichment through abuse of office.
RFE/RL's Brussels correspondent Rikard Jozwiak has sent us this update on EU sanctions:
EU Renews Sanctions On Russian Officials, Ukrainian Separatists
BRUSSELS -- European Union ambassadors have prolonged the asset freezes and visa bans on 150 Russian officials and Moscow-backed Ukrainian separatists for another six months, EU diplomats told RFE/RL. The measure was also rolled over for 38 entities on the sanctions list.
The diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak on the record, said the measures would be formally adopted in the coming days.
Asset freezes and visa bans were first imposed by the EU on people responsible for actions against Ukraine's territorial integrity in March 2014, after Russia occupied and seized control of Crimea. Those sanctions have been extended every six months.
The EU diplomats said that Russia's new ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Antonov, remains on the EU sanctions list.
The Russians under EU sanctions also include Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, Armed Forces General Staff chief Valery Gerasimov, and state TV presenter Dmitry Kiselyov.
The entity list is dominated by Russia-backed battalions operating in eastern Ukraine and Crimea as well as companies from the Ukrainian peninsula, which was annexed by Moscow in 2014.
The EU's economic sanctions against Russia, which mainly apply to the country's energy and banking sector, are up for renewal in July but a decision is expected when EU leaders meet in Brussels in late June.
The same month the EU officials are also expected to revisit the bloc's investment ban on Crimea.