A tweet from the spokesperson for Ukraine's Ministry of Foreign Affairs
From our Power Vertical blogger Brian Whitmore
Good morning. We'll get the live blog rolling today with some of the tweets that caught our eye overnight:
Some solidarity from Minsk...
We are now closing the live blog for today. Until we resume again tomorrow morning, you can keep up with all our other Ukrainian coverage here.
RFE/RL's Christopher Miller has written an exhaustive profile of Ukrainian tycoon and power broker Viktor Medvedchuk, whom critics have dubbed the "Prince of Darkness":
Behind The Scenes In Ukraine, Ties To Putin Help Power Broker Pull Strings
KYIV -- More than a decade ago, Viktor Medvedchuk became known as the "Gray Cardinal" because his low profile masked unparalleled clout in the halls of power in Ukraine.
These days, detractors have another nickname for the millionaire tycoon and backroom politician with close personal ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin: they call him the Prince of Darkness.
A behind-the-scenes force in Ukrainian politics ever since Leonid Kuchma's presidency, when he served as chief of staff from 2002 to 2005, Medvedchuk holds no prominent post today -- and he says he doesn't want one. In a recent interview, he told RFE/RL he feels more "free" and effective without the confines of political office.
But his outsize influence has been thrown into relief again by the upheaval that has hit Ukraine since protesters drove a Moscow-friendly president from power in February 2014. Russia responded by seizing Crimea and fomenting unrest in eastern Ukraine, setting off a war between Kyiv and Russia-backed separatists that has killed more than 9,500 people.
With ties in tatters, Ukraine's new, pro-Western leadership appointed Medvedchuk that June to act as a lead arbiter in dealings with Russia. The hope was that the Kremlin connections of a man who has Putin as the godfather of his daughter would be helpful -- particularly in negotiating prisoner exchanges.
But Medvedchuk's Kremlin connections meant that, while the appointment was celebrated in Moscow, it was met with widespread concern and suspicion by the Ukrainian public.
More than two years later, that wariness has not gone away. Several Ukrainians who were jailed in Russia have returned home in swap deals, including the prominent former helicopter navigator Nadia Savchenko, but many others remain behind bars.
INFOGRAPHIC: Russia's Jailed Ukrainians
Meanwhile, the peace deal Medvedchuk helped forge for eastern Ukraine is in danger of falling apart. The cease-fire is in tatters, with increased fighting this summer stoking fears of a return to full-scale war. And political aspects of the Minsk accords, which were supposed to reintegrate separatist-held territory into Ukraine and restore Kyiv's control over its border with Russia by the end of 2015, have gone largely unfulfilled.
For many in Ukraine, questions about the motives of Medvedchuk have only been amplified.
Read the entire article here