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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

20:24 6.2.2018

20:26 6.2.2018

20:32 6.2.2018

Hmm

20:35 6.2.2018

Interesting idea. (And speaking of the Western Balkans and the EU, check out this report from Brussels today)

22:10 6.2.2018

22:13 6.2.2018

22:14 6.2.2018

22:15 6.2.2018

ICYMI

22:17 6.2.2018

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.

10:04 7.2.2018

Prosecutor says Saakashvili's curfew won't be renewed:

By RFE/RL

Ukraine's top prosecutor has said he will not seek to renew a nightly curfew on opposition leader Mikheil Saakashvili.

"Saakashvili has finally begun to appear for questioning so when the restrictive measure [curfew] imposed on him expires, we will not renew it. He is appearing after receiving summonses, and therefore, in my opinion, he does not need any further burden," Prosecutor-General Yuriy Lutsenko told TSN.ua on February 6.

The comments were later posted on Facebook by Lutsenko's spokesman.

On January 26, the Kyiv City Court of Appeals placed the former Georgian president and ex-governor of Ukraine's Odesa region under house arrest every night until February 7 from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. It also barred him from leaving the Ukrainian capital without permission from a court or the Prosecutor-General's Office.

Ukrainian authorities have accused Saakashvili of abetting an alleged "criminal group" led by former President Viktor Yanukovych, who fled to Russia after his ouster in February 2014.

They also claim that protests led by Saakashvili in Ukraine are part of a Russian plot against the government in Kyiv.

Saakashvili has strongly denied all those charges.

Saakashvili was president of Georgia from 2004 to 2013. He lost his Georgian citizenship in 2015 when he accepted Ukrainian citizenship and took the post of Odesa governor.

He resigned that position in November 2016, complaining of rampant corruption, and has since become an ardent opponent of President Petro Poroshenko.

The 50-year-old also faces government anger in Georgia. On January 5, the Tbilisi City Court found him guilty of abuse of power by allegedly trying to cover up evidence in a 2006 murder case and sentenced him in absentia to three years in prison.

He has also denied those charges and said they were politically motivated as well. (w/TASS, AFP)

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