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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

14:16 29.3.2018

14:06 29.3.2018

Russian convicted in absentia of joining Azov Battalion:

A Moscow court has sentenced a Russian man in absentia after convicting him of fighting against Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.

Roman Zheleznov, who is currently in Ukraine, was found guilty of mercenary activity and sentenced to four years in prison in absentia at a hearing on March 29.

Prosecutors said that Zheleznov had joined the pro-Kyiv Azov Battalion, which has fought against the separatists in the 4-year-old war in Ukraine's Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

More than 10,300 people have been killed in the conflict since April 2014.

Russia denies it has sent its soldiers to fight alongside the separatists, despite what Kyiv and NATO say is clear evidence that it has done so.

There are no known cases in which Russia has pressed mercenary-activity charges against anyone for joining the separatists, but it has prosecuted citizens accused of fighting on Kyiv's side.

In June 2017, a court in the city of Samara sentenced a local man, Artyom Shirobokov, to five years in prison in absentia after convicting him of joining the Azov Battalion. (Interfax, RIA Novosti)

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