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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

16:10 20.6.2018

Here is today's map of the security situation in eastern Ukraine, according to the National Security and Defense Council (click to enlarge):

16:09 20.6.2018

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15:44 20.6.2018

Tymoshenko announces presidential run:

By RFE/RL

Ukrainian opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko says she plans to run for president in 2019, setting up a possible showdown with incumbent Petro Poroshenko.

In a video posted on her Facebook page on June 20, Tymoshenko said she will run for the presidency "not just to play an authoritarian game...but to lift Ukraine back on its feet."

"The presidential office for me is not a PlayStation, but a place to introduce real changes our country has been longing for," said Tymoshenko, who is leader of Ukraine's opposition Batkivshchyna (Fatherland) party.

Tymoshenko, 57, lost to pro-Russian candidate Viktor Yanukovych in 2010 and to Poroshenko in 2014 after Yanukovych was driven from power and fled to Russia.

Tymoshenko, who was Ukraine's prime minister from 2007 to 2010, was jailed on embezzlement charges following her government's defeat by Yanukovych in 2010.

Her sentence was viewed by much of the international community as political in nature. She was released in February 2014 and later reelected to parliament.

According to recent polls, Tymoshenko and Poroshenko each have support of 14 to 16 percent of Ukrainian voters.

13:20 20.6.2018

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