U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen has said that Ukraine shouldn't expect Washington's decision on whether to arm it in the near future.
"I was among those in the Congress who supported providing Ukraine with defense weapons. As you know, the Congress and [presidential] administration had their differences with regards to this issue. I don't think that in the near future there will be a solution that would be different from what we have now," she said in a comment to RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service.
Starting at 10 a.m. today Ukraine has been pumping Russian gas into its underground storage locations, Ukrainian Minister of Energy and Coal Industry Volodymyr Demchyshyn has said. Ukraine has tried to limit its use of Russian gas, but is still incapable of eliminating it completely, RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service reports.
According to Demchyshyn, Ukraine's Naftogaz has requested 114 million cubic meters of gas from Russia a day.
Within 20-30 days he expects Ukraine to increase its reserves from 15.8 billion cubic meters to 17 billion-18 billion.
"The funds reserved for Gazprom allow for transfer of 2.2 billion cubic meters," he said.
Ukraine's gas consumption increased in September from 40 million cubic meters to 65 million a day, said the minister.
"Without Russian gas it is impossible to go through the heating season," Demchyshyn said. He explained that it would be possible only if Ukraine were to have a very warm winter, if the consumption decreased due to energy saving measures or if industrial production declined.
"We hope that next year it will be much easier to go through winter and we will be able to go through it without Russian gas," he said.
The latest campaign map.
The location of Crimean Hennadiy Afanasyev, convicted in Russia for organizing terrorist acts in Crimea, has been unknown for over a month now, said his mother Olha. Her attempts to learn where Russia sent him were unsuccessful, the RFE/RL Crimean desk reports.
“The public oversight committee will try to call the [prison] colonies. They won’t tell me, that’ for sure, I have already tried,” she said.
The last time Olha heard news of her son was over a month ago. He was in the Russian Republic of Komi waiting to be transported to a colony.
Hennadiy Afanasyev was a witness in the case of Ukrainians Oleh Sentsov and Oleksanda Kolchenko, who were sentenced in Russia to 20 and 10 years respectively. During the court hearings Afanasyev retracted his testimony, claiming that he had been tortured.
Separatists from the so-called Luhansk People’s Republic say they have scheduled elections for February 21, 2016. The relevant “decree” was published on separatist websites today. On October 9 the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic said it had scheduled elections for March 20, 2016.
Separatists claim that before the elections “Ukraine must grant special status to Donbas, prevent prosecution and punishment of participants of the events in Donbas and vote for constitutional changes in accordance with separatists’ wording.”
According to the Minsk agreement, however, local elections on the territories currently under control of the pro-Russian separatists may be held only in accordance with Ukrainian law. This means that only Ukrainian parliament can schedule elections, but not “DPR” or “LPR” leaders.
Local elections in Ukraine will take place on October 25.
Latest on Ukraine ban on Russian airlines:
Ukraine’s government says it is banning all Russian airlines from flying into Ukraine from October 25 in response to Moscow's decision in September to impose a similar ban on Ukrainian airlines.
The punitive measure announced on October 12 concerns only two carriers -- Siberia's UTair and the tiny Saratov Airlines -- because Kyiv had earlier barred bigger Russian firms in reprisal for Moscow's March 2014 annexation of Crimea.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on September 16 blacklisted Russia's flag carrier Aeroflot and three other state-held companies that offered regular flights to Ukraine.
The State Air Service in Kyiv said the Russian carriers are not be allowed to land in Ukraine but would still be permitted to cross its airspace to other destination points.
The only remaining options for air travel between Russia and Ukraine are by flying via the Baltic states or some other country with relatively convenient access to Russia.
Worth re-upping this excellent piece again:
Just reupping that Mashable piece ahead of the Dutch Safety Board report on MH17, which is due out tomorrow.