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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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We are now closing the live blog for today, but we'll be back again tomorrow morning to follow all the latest developments. Until then, you can keep up with all our other Ukraine coverage here.

07:41 20.11.2017

Saakashvili tells protesters in Kyiv he's ready to become prime minister:

By RFE/RL

Mikheil Saakashvili, the former governor of Ukraine's Odesa region, has told a protest rally in Kyiv that he is ready to "create a new government of Ukraine" and to become the country’s prime minister.

"Ukraine needs an urgent formation of a new government,” Saakashvili told several hundred people in a tent city of protesters outside the parliament building on November 19. "I'm ready to spearhead this process jointly with you and to head this government if necessary."

"Let's create a new government of Ukraine," he added. "But above all, we will find those Ukrainians who care about Ukraine, who will respect and develop Ukraine."

Antigovernment protesters set up the tent city outside the Verkhovna Rada building on October 17, calling for the cancellation of parliamentarian immunity, the creation of an anticorruption court, amendments to election laws, and legislation on impeachment of the president.

The protests were initially called by Saakashvili, a onetime ally of President Petro Poroshenko, but many of Ukraine's opposition political leaders have also joined the demonstrations.

Saakashvili, who heads the opposition Movement of New Forces party, told protesters that if the authorities fail to meet their demands, they should begin a “popular impeachment” of Poroshenko and other leaders starting on December 3.

"December 3 will be the beginning of 'popular impeachment,'" he said. “Before December 3, we will continue to do what we have started to do. December 3 is Day X for all of us. Let us get organized. I will be traveling across the country to raise people peacefully."

From 2004-13, Saakashvili was president of Georgia, where he is wanted on suspicion of trying to organize a coup there after his exit from office, allegations he denies.

In 2015, he was appointed by Poroshenko to be governor of the Odesa region and surrendered his Georgian citizenship to take the post.

However, Saakashvili resigned in November 2016, saying his reform efforts had been blocked by Poroshenko's allies.

Saakashvili was then stripped of Ukrainian citizenship by Poroshenko in June 2017 in a move he is challenging in court.

He left the country as a stateless person, but on September 10 he defied the authorities and crossed back into Ukraine from Poland -- helped by hundreds of supporters amid scenes of chaos -- vowing to return to politics and calling for protests.

Poroshenko has said the real goal of protest organizers is to destabilize Ukraine.

Ukraine's powerful prosecutor-general, Yuriy Lutsenko, has accused Saakashvili and his supporters of plotting a coup backed by foreign financing. (w/TASS, Interfax, Kyiv Post)

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