That concludes our live-blogging of the Ukraine crisis for Saturday, November 18, 2017. Check back here tomorrow for more of our continuing coverage.
Good morning. We'll start the live blog today with this item that RFE/RL's Washington bureau posted overnight:
Trump To Get Proposal To Supply Defensive Weapons To Ukraine, ABC News Reports
Senior aides will present U.S. President Donald Trump with a $47 million plan to finance and sell high-tech defensive weapons to Ukraine to bolster its efforts to repel Russian aggression in the region, ABC News reported, quoting a State Department source.
ABC News on November 18 said the plan would supply Ukraine with weapons that include portable Javelin antitank missiles.
News reports say a shoulder-mounted weapon Javelin costs about $126,000 per launcher and $78,000 for each missile.
A spokesman for the National Security Council (NSC) told ABC on November 17 that the agency had "no announcement at this time." The NSC decided earlier this week to green-light the presentation of the package, ABC said.
Any decision on the matter has to be approved by the U.S. Congress, as well as Trump.
Ukrainian government forces are battling Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine in a war that has killed more than 10,000 people since April 2014.
Russia also seized control of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula and annexed the region in March 2014.
Escalation Fears
During a visit to Ukraine in August, U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis signaled his personal support for providing weapons to Kyiv. That comes in sharp contrast to the previous White House administration, which feared that supplying weapons could escalate the situation and tensions with Russia.
But such a move would also represent a reversal from the Republican party platform on sending lethal weapons to Ukraine.
During the 2016 presidential campaign, after Trump became the party nominee, the Republican platform was shifted from supporting "lethal defensive arms" to Ukraine to more vague language calling for "appropriate assistance.”
Trump, during the campaign and into his presidency, has pressed for better relations with Russia, worrying some that he was looking to weaken support for the pro-Western government in Kyiv and to possibly attempt to ease sanctions on Moscow imposed for its aggression in Ukraine.
A State Department official told ABC that a meeting will be held in the coming weeks to discuss the "public messaging" related to the sale.
With reporting by ABC News, AP, and The Hill
Here's another item that was filed overnight by our Washington bureau:
Prisoner Swap Between Ukraine, Pro-Russia Separatists Appears to Be Moving Closer
Ukraine and pro-Russia separatists appear to be moving closer to a new round of prisoner exchanges after a flurry of comments from Kyiv, Moscow, and separatist groups.
Yuriy Tandit, an adviser to the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), on November 18 told Ukraine's Channel 5 that the "most important thing is that it happens fast, because many of the men have been there for a good three years."
Optimism has grown over the past few days after the Kremlin said Russian President Vladimir Putin on November 15 told separatist leaders Aleksandr Zakharchenko of the Donetsk region and Igor Plotnitsky of Luhansk by phone that he favored a prisoner swap with Kyiv.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Zakharchenko and Plotnitsky supported a swap in principle but "pointed out that the issue will have to be worked out further on with representatives of Ukraine."
The SBU on November 16 said it welcomed "any steps" by Russia that would facilitate exchanges of people held by Kyiv and the Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.
Tandit said the SBU was prepared to hand over the hundreds of separatist fighters being held by Ukrainian authorities in return for Ukrainian troops held by separatists.
Reports say Ukraine has 306 separatist fighters in custody, while the separatists are holding 74 government soldiers.
The separatists have controlled the capitals and some other districts of the Luhansk and Donetsk provinces since the spring of 2014, when Moscow fomented separatism amid unrest that led to the downfall of Moscow-friendly Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych that February.
Russia does not recognize the separatist-held areas as independent and says it supports Ukraine's territorial integrity. Moscow also denies providing the separatists with troops, weapons, and other support in a war that has killed 10,000 people in the two regions since April 2014, despite what Kyiv and NATO say is incontrovertible evidence of such support.
The Russian statements confirming that Putin spoke to the Russia-backed separatist leaders represented a rare public acknowledgment of such direct contacts.
With reporting by Christopher Miller in Kyiv, TASS, and dpa
Here is today's map of the latest situation in the Donbas conflict zone, according to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry. (CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE)
