A report that also pertains to Ukraine from RFE/RL's Brussels correspondent Rikard Jozwiak:
No 2019 Eastern Partnership Summit Foreseen In Busy Post-Brexit EU
BRUSSELS -- The European Union will not hold an Eastern Partnership summit in 2019, but a "high-level conference" marking the 10th anniversary of the forum will bring together the EU and the former Soviet republics of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine, several sources have told RFE/RL.
According to the sources -- European Union officials and diplomats from EU countries who are familiar with the issue but are not authorized to discuss it publicly -- the high-level conference is expected to take place in Brussels on May 14.
Under the Eastern Partnership framework, which aims to bring the six countries closer to the EU without the offer of eventual membership, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine have all struck association agreements with the EU that include free-trade pacts.
Visa liberalization has made it easier for citizens of those three countries to travel to the bloc’s Schengen Area.
While past Eastern Partnership summits have been attended by heads of state or government, the 2019 meeting is likely to be for foreign ministers, sources said. The foreign ministers of all the EU countries are set to gather in Brussels for a monthly council meeting on May 13.
Eastern Partnership summits have been held every other year, and the most recent was in November 2017. But convening a summit in 2019 would be complicated for several reasons, diplomats and officials said.
Britain is expected to leave the EU at the end of March and Romania, which will hold the rotating EU presidency in the first half of 2019, plans to host a major EU summit on May 9 to focus on the future of the bloc, which will be down to 27 members after Brexit.
Elections to the European Parliament take place a few weeks later and a new European Commission and new European Council president will be confirmed in the fall, complicating any efforts to make major decisions.
An Eastern Partnership summit is more likely to happen in 2020, after new leaders for several EU institutions have been selected.
We're not really sure what this is all about, but worth a watch all the same...
U.S. Embassy in Kyiv calls on Ukraine authorities to thoroughly investigate crimes against journalists:
Here is today's map of the latest situation in the Donbas conflict zone according to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry. (CLICK TO ENLARGE.)
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.
Kyiv Patriarch Rejects Property Seizures, Saying They'll Give Kremlin Pretext For Incursions
By Ron Synovitz and Oleksandr Lashchenko
KYIV -- The leader of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate says steps toward independence from Moscow must be carried out carefully to avoid giving the Kremlin a pretext for further Russian incursions into Ukrainian territory.
Patriarch Filaret's statement came after a synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople chaired by Patriarch Bartholomew I, who is considered the leader of the 300-million-strong worldwide Orthodox community, decreed on October 11 to "proceed to the granting of Autocephaly to the Church of Ukraine."
The synod, however, made sure to warn against violence and attempted property takeovers.
In an exclusive interview with RFE/RL, Filaret talked in detail about the process of establishing a fully independent Ukrainian church and the future status of the Moscow-loyal church in Ukraine.
Ukraine currently has three Orthodox denominations: the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, which remained subordinate to Russia after the breakup of the Soviet Union; and two breakaway entities -- the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate led by Filaret, and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church led by Metropolitan Makariy.
"We will be striving to have a single Orthodox Church in Ukraine and to make sure that the Russian [Orthodox] Church is not hiding under the Ukrainian name while, in essence, it is Russian,” Filaret told RFE/RL on October 31.
He said the official name of an independent church will be the "Ukrainian Orthodox Church," but it also will be known as the “Kyiv Patriarchate."
Once the Istanbul-based Ecumenical Patriarchate delivers a formal decree on the Kyiv Patriarchate’s independence from Moscow, Filaret said that “the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate will no longer have the right to be called the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.”
This is what Moscow wants – raider seizures that create the grounds for interference in the internal affairs of Ukraine.”-- Patriarch Filaret
“Instead, it will be named as the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine,” Filaret said.
“Believers have the right to choose,” Filaret said. “If any parish wants to switch from the Moscow Patriarchate and join the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, then two-thirds of the parish must vote for that transition.
“As of now, more than 150 parishes have joined us,” he said.
The most delicate issue surrounding the official separation is competing property-ownership claims of the Kyiv Patriarchate and Moscow-loyal church representatives in Ukraine.
Filaret insists there will be no illegal seizures of church buildings in Ukraine that are currently under the control of the Moscow-loyal church, which is under the authority of the Russian Orthodox Church.
“This is what Moscow wants – raider seizures that create the grounds for interference in the internal affairs of Ukraine,” Filaret told RFE/RL.
Filaret noted that the Russian government justified its 2014 seizure of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula by articulating a blanket assertion that Moscow has the right and the obligation of protecting and “defending the Russian-speaking population” anywhere in the world.
“Now they want to create conditions [where they can claim their activities are] for the protection of the Orthodox believers,” Filaret said. “Knowing this, we do not want to give them a reason for interference in our internal [affairs], and therefore there will be no forcible seizure of church buildings."
Nevertheless, Filaret rejected the Moscow Patriarchate’s claims to the famous Kyiv Pechersk Lavra – the Kyiv Monastery of the Caves. The almost 1,000-year-old monastery in Kyiv is a Ukrainian national monument, a center of Orthodox Christianity in Eastern Europe, and the place of residence for the leader of the Russia-loyal church, Metropolitan Onufriy.
“Everyone knows that Kyiv Pechersk Lavra is a Ukrainian shrine that is the state’s property,” Filaret told RFE/RL. “Therefore, they can say anything, but the laws say a completely different thing.”
Still, Filaret insisted the Kyiv patriarchate does “not want to forcibly seize the Lavra or other monasteries or parishes” in Ukraine.
All such disputes, he said, should be resolved on a "voluntary basis.”
The 89-year-old Filaret had been a front-runner to head the Russian Orthodox Church during the Soviet era. But he was excommunicated in 1997 over his efforts to set up the Kyiv Patriarchate as an independent Ukrainian church following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Ukraine’s Moscow-loyal church, as well as the Moscow-based Russian Orthodox Church, consider the Kyiv Patriarchate as schismatic and heretical.