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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

23:10 16.3.2018

23:09 16.3.2018

Poroshenko talks on the steps that need to be taken in order to join NATO and the EU:

23:08 16.3.2018

23:07 16.3.2018

23:07 16.3.2018

Will Ukrainian officials heed the latest conclusions by the Venice Commission?

23:06 16.3.2018

President Poroshenko visits a border checkpoint:

23:05 16.3.2018

23:05 16.3.2018

A report on Ukrainians buying expensive properties in Miami and how it is done:

23:02 16.3.2018

President Poroshenko urges Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan not to recognize the Russian presidential election being held in Crimea:

23:00 16.3.2018

From RFE/RL's Central Newsroom:

Russians In Ukraine Barred From Voting In March 18 Presidential Poll

By RFE/RL

Russians living in Ukraine will be unable to vote in Russia's presidential election because access to Moscow's diplomatic missions will be blocked, Kyiv said March 16.

"On Sunday, March 18, 2018, security arrangements for Russia's Ukraine-based diplomatic missions in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa, and Lviv will not provide access to these facilities for Russian nationals voting in the election," Ukraine's Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said on Facebook.

The announcement came in retaliation for Russia's annexation of Crimea, which votes in a presidential election for the first time since it was taken over in 2014.

Avakov wrote on Facebook on March 16 that despite Kyiv's official protest and warning that it will allow Russian citizens to vote in Russian diplomatic missions across Ukraine only on condition that Moscow refrains from holding elections on "the Ukrainian territories temporarily occupied by Russia," Russia did not change its plans.

https://www.facebook.com/arsen.avakov.1/posts/1695929500497149

"Ukraine's interior ministry states that conducting illegal elections on Ukraine's sovereign territory in violation of all norms of international law is unacceptable," Avakov said on Facebook.

Moscow's Foreign Ministry responded by criticizing what it called Ukrainian "overt interference in the internal affairs of the Russian Federation."

It accused Kyiv of displaying "righteous indignation" and "taking their revenge on ordinary Russian citizens."

March 18 will mark four years since Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a treaty that declared Crimea part of Russia following its annexation from Ukraine, a move that led to the outbreak of a conflict between government forces and Russia-backed separatists in Ukraine's industrial east in April 2014.

More than 10,300 people have been killed in the figthing since then.

Avakov also mentioned "Russia's aggressive hybrid war against Ukraine" and "the occupation of parts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions" in eastern Ukraine.

With reporting by AFP

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