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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

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French President Emanuel Macron was talking with Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg today. Here's what they had to say about Ukraine:

Macron told Putin that European Union sanctions on Russia would not be lifted unless there was progress on Ukraine.

"The ball is in the camp of Russia and Ukraine. It's as simple as that,” Macron said.

“We won't lift the sanctions if nothing's done. That's what we discussed with Vladimir Putin," Macron told reporters after his meeting with the Russian president.

Macron added that EU leaders will meet in July to consider extending the sanctions slapped on Russia for its aggression against Ukraine.

Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimea Peninsula and has backed separatists in a bloody war in eastern Ukraine since 2014.

You can read our full report on the meeting between the two presidents here.

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Here we'll point you in the direction of this new feature by RFE/RL's Alan Crosby:

Siren Call: The 'Distinctly High Voice' That Led MH17 Sleuths To A Russian Missile Suspect

​Oleg Vladimirovich Ivannikov, an officer of the Russian military intelligence agency's (GRU) Main Directorate of the General Staff, took a lot of precautions to cover up his identity. But he couldn't hide his "atypical" voice.

The 51-year-old has been fingered in a joint investigation by open-source researchers at Bellingcat, The Insider, and the McClatchy Washington bureau, "with very high certainty" as being a missile specialist who was in charge of military operations in eastern Ukraine during an "undercover deployment" by Russia at the time of the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in 2014.

It says Ivannikov is sought by the Dutch-based international Joint Investigating Team (JIT) tasked with identifying suspects in the missile attack.

Read more here

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