Flash from Interfax:
KYIV SEES NO NEED TO PASS NEW LAWS ON AMNESTY, SPECIAL STATUS OF DONBAS,
LEGISLATION ALREADY CREATED - UKRAINIAN PRESIDENTIAL ADMINISTRATION
Kyiv's envoy to the EU, Kostyantyn Yeliseyev:
Russian court upholds prolongation of Savchenko's detention:
A Russian court has rejected an appeal from Ukrainian military pilot Nadia Savchenko over an extension of her detention.
The Rostov regional court on October 5 upheld a ruling by another court on September 15 prolonging Savchenko's stay in jail until January.
Russian officials say Savchenko, who served in a volunteer battalion in eastern Ukraine where she was fighting against Russian-backed separatists, provided the coordinates for a mortar attack that killed two Russian journalists in 2014.
Savchenko has insisted she was captured by rebels in Ukraine and illegally taken into Russia.
She had previously gone on a hunger strike to protest her detention.
International rights groups have called for Savchenko to be released.
Savchenko was also elected in absentia to Ukraine's parliament last year. (TASS, Interfax)
Fourty-six percent of Ukrainians support the idea of introducing a visa regime with Russia, according to the polls conducted by Kyiv International Institute of Sociology and Russian nongovernmental Levada Center, RFE/RL'S Ukrainian Service reports.
Ukrainian respondents were asked what kind of relationship they would want for Ukraine to have with Russia.
While 46 percent said that they would like to have closed borders and customs with Russia, 45 percent said that Ukraine and Russia should be independent but friendly states. And 2 percent said that Ukraine and Russia should unite into one country.
Meanwhile, sociologists concluded that in Russia attitudes toward Ukraine have been changing.
In the September poll, 25 percent said they wanted closed borders with Ukraine, as opposed to 30 percent of those polled in May, while 59 percent want friendly relationship with Ukraine (54 percent in May). And 8 percent want the two states to unite (10 percent in May).
At the same time, the percentage of Russians and Ukrainians who have positive attitudes toward each other is almost equal. In Ukraine, 34 percent of those polled have positive attitudes toward Russia, while in Russia 33 percent have positive attitudes toward Ukraine.
Lighter weaponry being withdrawn from front line:
Ukrainian government forces and Russian-backed separatists have started withdrawing small-caliber weapons from the front line.
Military spokesman Ruslan Tkachuk said the "synchronized withdrawal from the front line" began on October 5 in the eastern Luhansk region, involving tanks, antitank cannons, and mortars.
The rebels in Luhansk confirmed that the weapons were being withdrawn.
Later, the separatist forces in the Donetsk region are also scheduled to withdraw weapons from the front line.
Arms with a caliber of less than 100 millimeters are to be pulled back a distance of 15 kilometers within 41 days.
A spokesman for international monitors in the area, Michael Bociurkiw of the OSCE, told the BBC there was "encouraging" movement of heavy weapons.
The pullback is part of the cease-fire agreement signed in Minsk in February.
The conflict in eastern Ukraine between separatists and government forces has left more than 7,900 dead since April 2014. (BBC, TASS, Interfax)