That concludes our live-blogging of the Ukraine crisis for Thursday, November 12. Check back here tomorrow morning for more of our continuing coverage.
ICC says no crimes against humanity at Maidan:
A preliminary probe by the International Criminal Court (ICC) suggests that Ukraine's security forces used "excessive and indiscriminate" force in the 2014 EuroMaidan protests but are not guilty of crimes against humanity.
ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said in a report released on November 12 that The Hague-based organization had opened a tentative investigation into the conflict.
The months-long pro-Western uprising began in November 2013 on Kyiv's Maidan Square and led to the toppling of Viktor Yanukovych's pro-Russian government and the deaths of some 100 people, mostly protesters.
Bensouda said that "While these considerations tend to indicate that alleged crimes do not amount to crimes against humanity," she added that the ICC did find that "serious human rights abuses did occur" at Independence Square.
Bensouda said that although the attacks on the protesters constituted an "attack directed against a civilian population," there was "limited information...to support a conclusion that...it was either widespread or systematic."
She said the ICC's preliminary probe was continuing in the Russia-annexed Crimea and eastern Donbas region, where more than 7,900 people have been killed in fighting between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian forces.
Ukraine's parliament has accepted the ICC's jurisdiction to probe crimes committed on its territory from November 2013 onward. (AFP)
Poroshenko gives medal to Soros:
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has awarded U.S. financier and billionaire philanthropist George Soros with Ukraine's Order of Liberty.
Poroshenko presented Soros the award, one of Ukraine's highest, in Kyiv on November 12.
"Your intense activities during recent years have extremely promoted the democratic change that we now have happening in Ukraine," Poroshenko told Soros.
He said Soros's International Renaissance Foundation had played a big role in the development of Ukraine's statehood in the past 25 years.
Soros, 85, said after receiving the award that it was a great honor for him personally and for the International Renaissance Foundation.
Soros's charitable organizations have given billions of dollars to countries in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, with charities operating in some 25 countries. (Interfax, TASS)
Tsarist dynasty descendent elected mayor in Sumy region:
The French descendant of one of the Russian Empire's richest family dynasties this week became mayor of the Ukrainian town of Hlukhiv, where his family made its fortune.
Michelle Tereshchenko, 61, took office in the Sumy Oblast town after receiving more than 65 percent of the vote in Ukraine’s local elections on October 25.
He is a descendant of the famed Tereshchenko dynasty of industrialists and philanthropists, who made their fortune in sugar-beet production.
He was born in Paris after his family fled to France during the Bolshevik Revolution.
His family ties -- the Tereshchenkos built most of the 19th-century town center -- served him well in the elections. Now he promises to establish the "true eastern border of Europe" in the small town a few miles south of the Russian border.
Tereshchenko told AFP that he hoped to establish a flourishing, corruption-free democratic government like the one his grandfather had hoped to establish in Tsarist Russia.
"It failed in Russia. But it will succeed in Ukraine," he said.
Tereshchenko first made headlines in March when Ukrainian President Poroshenko granted him citizenship. (AFP, Euromaidanpress.com)