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Ten-year-old Sasha stands in a bomb shelter in Donetsk in eastern Ukraine.
Ten-year-old Sasha stands in a bomb shelter in Donetsk in eastern Ukraine.

Live Blog: Ukraine In Crisis (Archive)

Follow all of the latest developments as they happen.

Final News Summary For September 29

-- We have started a new Ukraine Live Blog. Find it here.

-- Ukraine is marking 75 years since the World War II massacre of 33,771 Jews on the outskirts of Nazi-occupied Kyiv.

-- German Chancellor Angela Merkel has urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to stabilize a fragile cease-fire in Ukraine and do all he could to improve what Merkel called a "catastrophic humanitarian situation" in Syria.

-- Russia's Supreme Court has upheld a decision by a Moscow-backed Crimean court to ban the Mejlis, the self-governing body of Crimean Tatars in the occupied Ukrainian territory.

* NOTE: Times are stated according to local time in Kyiv (GMT/UTC +3)

15:17 29.9.2016

14:41 29.9.2016
The chairman of the Mejlis, Refat Chubarov
The chairman of the Mejlis, Refat Chubarov

Russia's Supreme Court Upholds Ban On Crimean Tatars' Mejlis

By RFE/RL's Russian Service

Russia's Supreme Court has upheld a decision by a Moscow-backed Crimean court to ban the Mejlis, the self-governing body of Crimean Tatars in the occupied Ukrainian territory.

Mejlis' lawyer Kirill Koroteyev said the September 29 ruling by the Russian court will be appealed at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

On April 26, more than two years after Russia seized and illegally annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula, Crimea's pro-Russian Supreme Court branded the Mejlis as an extremist organization and officially banned it.

The Mejlis had been legalized by the Ukrainian government in 1999.

Crimea's indigenous Tatars make up about 12 percent of Crimea's population of 2.5 million people.

Many Crimean Tatars fled the territory after it was seized by Russian military forces in February 2014 and illegally annexed by Moscow in March 2014.

Crimean Tatars who have remained in the occupied territory complain of harassment and enforced disappearances under the Moscow-backed authorities there.

Russia has been severely criticized by international rights groups and Western governments for its treatment of the Turkic-speaking Muslim minority since the annexation.

With reporting by Interfax and TASS
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