That concludes our live-blogging of the Ukraine crisis for June 12, 2019. Check back here tomorrow for more of our continuing coverage. Thanks for reading and take care.
Here is today's map of the security situation in eastern Ukraine, according to the National Security and Defense Council (CLICK TO ENLARGE):
Eight Crimean Tatars Jailed On Extremism Charges
By the Crimea Desk Of RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service
SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine -- A court in Russia-controlled Crimea has sent eight Crimean Tatars to pretrial detention for two months on extremism charges.
A court in Crimea's capital, Simferopol, ruled on June 11 that Lenur Khalilov and Eldar Kantemirov must be jailed until August 5.
A day earlier, the court sent six other Crimean Tatar activists -- Riza Omerov, his father Enver Omerov, Eskender Suleymanov, Ayder Dzhepparov, Ruslan Mesutov, and Ruslan Nagayev -- to pretrial detention for the same period.
The eight men were detained on June 10 after Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) officers and police searched their homes in the districts of Alushta, Bilohirsk, and Simferopol.
The FSB said then that the eight Crimean Tatars were suspected of being members of Hizb ut-Tahrir, an Islamic group that is banned in Russia but not in Ukraine.
The U.S. Embassy in Kyiv condemned the arrests in its Twitter statement on June 11.
"Eight more Crimean Tatars have been unlawfully detained this week. Russian authorities’ increasing persecution of Crimean Tatars is unacceptable and needs to stop,' the statement said.
Earlier, in March and April, the FSB detained 24 Crimean Tatars also on suspicion of being members of Hizb ut-Tahrir following house-to-house searches in Crimea.
Since Russia seized the peninsula in 2014, Russian authorities have prosecuted dozens of Crimean Tatars for allegedly belonging to Hizb ut-Tahrir.
Rights groups and Western governments have denounced what they describe as a campaign of repression by the Russian-imposed authorities in Crimea who are targeting members of the Turkic-speaking Crimean Tatar community and others who have spoken out against Moscow's takeover of the peninsula.
In its annual report on religious freedom worldwide, released on April 29, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) said that "[in] Russian-occupied Crimea, the Russian authorities continued to kidnap, torture, and imprison Crimean Tatar Muslims at will."
Russia took control of Crimea from Ukraine in March 2014 after sending in troops, seizing key facilities, and staging a referendum dismissed as illegal by at least 100 countries. Moscow also backs separatists in a war against government forces that has killed some 13,000 people in eastern Ukraine since April 2014.
EU ambassadors agree to extend Crimea sanctions another year:
By RFE/RL
BRUSSELS -- European Union ambassadors have agreed to extend the bloc's investment ban on the Crimean Peninsula by another year.
Sources familiar with the matter, speaking on condition of anonymity, told RFE/RL on June 12 that the sanctions will officially be prolonged at ministerial level within the next two weeks.
The EU sanctions were introduced in 2014 as a response to Russia's seizure of Ukraine's Crimea region in March 2014.
The measures include an EU-wide ban on imports from Crimea unless they have Ukrainian certificates, a ban on cruise ships flying the flag of an EU member state or controlled by a member state to call at ports in Crimea, and a prohibition of the purchase by EU companies of property and companies there.
Under the ban, goods and technology for the transport, telecommunications, and energy sectors also cannot be exported to Crimean companies or for use on the peninsula.
Moscow is also supporting separatists in eastern Ukraine in a conflict that has killed some 13,000 people since April 2014.
EU leaders are expected to prolong the bloc's economic sanctions against Russia, which mainly target the country's energy and banking sectors, by six months when they meet in Brussels on June 20.