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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

11:30 16.6.2018

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22:25 15.6.2018

This ends our live blogging for June 15. Be sure to check back tomorrow for our continuing coverage.

22:24 15.6.2018

Aide: Ukrainian, Russian rights officials set to meet amid Sentsov standoff:

By RFE/RL's Russian Service

An aide to Ukraine's ombudswoman says the official is set to meet her Russian counterpart in Moscow next week amid a dispute over access to jailed Ukrainian filmmaker Oleh Sentsov, who is on hunger strike in prison in far northern Russia following a terrorism conviction he says was fabricated.

Ukrainian ombudswoman Lyudmyla Denisova and Russian ombudswoman Tatyana Moskalkova have agreed to meet in the Russian capital on June 18, Olena Myachina, an aide to Denisova, told RFE/RL on June 15.

Denisova had previously declined to meet with Moskalkova after the Ukrainian official said she was prevented from meeting Sentsov after arriving at the penal colony where he is being held the Yamalo-Nenets region on June 15.

In a video statement on Facebook, Denisova said the warden and the regional prison service chief did not allow her to meet with Sentsov and gave no explanation for their decision.

Moskalkova, meanwhile, said that Denisova's attempt to meet with Sentsov violated "agreements reached previously."

Moskalkova told a television channel in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg on June 15 that she had asked prison authorities to give doctors proposed by the Ukrainian side access to Sentsov alongside Russian doctors in order to conduct an "independent assessment" of the filmmaker's health.

Sentsov was arrested in Crimea in 2014, after Russia seized the Ukrainian region. A Russian court in 2015 convicted him of planning to commit terrorist acts and sentenced him to 20 years in prison. He denies the accusations.

Sentsov has been on hunger strike since May 14, demanding that Russia release 64 Ukrainian citizens he considers political prisoners.

Western governments and rights organizations have called for Sentsov to be released, and the Russian human rights group Memorial considers him a political prisoner.

The European Parliament on June 14 overwhelmingly passed a resolution calling on Russian authorities to release Sentsov and all the other "illegally detained Ukrainian citizens" in Russia and Russian-controlled Crimea “immediately and unconditionally." (w/TASS)

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