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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

17:47 19.5.2018

A tweet from Ukraine's deputy prime minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration:

17:40 19.5.2018

From Crimea to Siberia: How Russia is Tormenting Political Prisoners Sentsov and Kolchenko -- a documentary published on YouTube this week by Hromadske International:

17:38 19.5.2018

16:17 19.5.2018

Here's a news item from RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service:

Poroshenko Recalls Ukraine's Envoys From CIS Bodies

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko (file photo)
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko (file photo)

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has signed a decree recalling Kyiv's envoys from bodies of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), a loose grouping of former Soviet republics that he said Ukraine no longer has any use for.

Poroshenko announced the decree in a speech in the western city of Vinnytsia on May 19, his press service said.

"We have nothing more to do there,” Poroshenko said, according to a statement from his office. "We are moving together to Europe."

Kyiv has been an associate member of the CIS since it was formed following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Full members include Russia and eight former Soviet republics -- Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.

Poroshenko announced plans to quit the CIS last month, criticizing the organization's "failure to denounce Russia's aggression [in Ukraine]."

Ukraine has been fighting against Russia-backed separatists in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk since April 2014, after Russia seized control of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula.

Poroshenko, who was elected after Russia-friendly President Viktor Yanukovych fled in February 2014 following months of mass street protests, has repeatedly said that Ukraine's future is linked with Europe and not Russia.

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