That concludes our live-blogging of the Ukraine crisis for Wednesday, October 3, 2018. Check back here tomorrow for more of our continuing coverage. Thanks for reading and take care.
NABU probing intelligence official with million-dollar homes:
Ukrainian anticorruption investigators have launched a probe into alleged illegal enrichment by a top intelligence official whose family reportedly owns three villas worth millions of dollars.
National Anticorruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) Director Artem Sytnyk told journalists in Kyiv on October 3 that the agency opened a case against Serhiy Semochko, a deputy head of the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine, after an investigative report aired on television that sparked public outrage.
The TV program Our Money ran a story saying that Semochko's family owns high-priced homes near Kyiv and lives a luxurious lifestyle, and that some of his relatives have dual Russian and Ukrainian citizenship.
Illegal enrichment charges can draw up to 10 years in jail.
Semochko has held top positions in the Foreign Intelligence Service since 2015, following his transfer to Kyiv from Crimea after Russia annexed the peninsula in 2014.
The TV program said his common-law wife, Tetyana Lysenko, and her daughter, Anastasia, own three villas near Kyiv, which have a total value of $8 million. The family leads a luxurious lifestyle and often uses a private helicopter, it said.
The TV reporters said they found evidence in Russian tax records and public registries that eight of Semochko's relatives have Russian citizenship.
Neither Ukraine's president, who appointed Semochko, nor the Foreign Intelligence Service itself has commented on the report.
"This is a deadly danger to hundreds of true intelligence officers and a threat to all of us," Ukrainian legislator Yegor Sobolev wrote on Facebook after the report was published on the Internet on October 1.
Western powers have urged Ukraine to tackle widespread problems with corruption and have made that a condition of granting loans to Kyiv. Ukraine was ranked 130th out of 180 countries on Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index in 2017. (AFP and Interfax)
Crimean court cuts pro-Ukrainian activist's five-year prison term by one month:
By the Crimean Desk of RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service
SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine -- A court in Russian-controlled Crimea has reduced a pro-Ukrainian activist's five-year prison term by one month.
The regional Supreme Court on October 3 ruled that Volodymyr Balukh must now serve four years and 11 months.
Balukh, who has been on hunger strike since March, refused to take part in the appeal hearing via video link.
The court rejected a motion filed by Balukh's lawyers to allow their client in the courtroom and held the hearing without his presence.
His supporters have dismissed the cases against the activist as politically motivated.
Russia illegally annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in March 2014, about a month after the Moscow-friendly Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovych, fled the country.
Since that time, Russia has moved aggressively to prosecute Ukrainian activists and anyone who questions the annexation.
Balukh was originally arrested in December 2016 and convicted on a weapons-and-explosives possession charge in August 2017.
His conviction, and nearly four-year prison sentence, was reversed on appeal and returned to a lower court, which issued the same verdict and sentence in January.
The new case against Balukh was started in March, after the warden of the penal facility where he is being held sued him, claiming that Balukh attacked him.
In July, a court found Balukh guilty in the second case, and sentenced him to five years in prison.
Balukh was arrested after Russian security agents allegedly found explosives and ammunition in his house.
The search was conducted shortly after Balukh planted a Ukrainian flag in his yard and affixed a sign to his house honoring those killed in Kyiv in 2013 and 2014 during the street protests that ousted the country's pro-Russian president.