Our very own Brian Whitmore:
The trial against former Party of Regions deputies Oleksandr Yefremov and Oleksandr Stoyan, and Serhiy Hordiyenko, a from Communist party deputy, began in Kyiv Pechersk Court today.
The three men are accused of rigging the vote count during parliamentarian voting for the so-called dictator laws package on January 16, 2014. Deputies passed the laws, restricting freedoms of speech and assembly, by voting with a show of hands, and the results are believed to have been falsified.
The Ukrainian General Prosecutor claims that Yanukovych himself gave an order to adopt the “dictator laws.”
Ukrainian Nationalists March On Oligarch's Office
Riot police prevented a crowd of angry Ukrainian nationalists from breaking into the offices of Rinat Akhmetov, one of the country's most powerful oligarchs. The protesters accuse him of being in league with pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. (RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service)
News breaks just in from Reuters:
UKRAINE ENERGY MINISTER DEMCHYSHYN SAYS HAS ASKED TATARS TO RESUME POWER SUPPLIES TO CRIMEA VIA KAKHOVKA-TITAL LINE
UKRAINE ENERGY MINISTER DEMCHYSHYN SAYS SOME POWER CAN COME TO CRIMEA BUT CANNOT RESOLVE THE PROBLEM OF CRIMEA IN PRINCIPLE
UKRAINE ENERGY MINISTER DEMCHYSHYN SAYS THE TIME WHEN UKRAINE RESUMES POWER SUPPLIES TO CRIMEA MUST BE AGREED WITH ACTIVISTS
Kyiv Says Agreement With Protesters Needed To Restore Crimea's Power
Ukraine’s Energy Minister Volodymyr Demchyshyn say some electricity deliveries to Crimea can be resumed but that the timing must be agreed with Crimean Tatar activists who are conducting protests along the transmission lines in Ukraine's Kherson region, just north of the Crimean Peninsula.
Demchyshyn said on November 30 that he has asked the activists to allow the resumption of electricity supplies to Crimea, nine days after the activists cut off power by blowing up electricity transmission towers in the Kherson region in a protest against Russia’s annexation of the territory.
Electricity is supplied to Crimea from Ukraine's Kherson region along four main power lines.
The activists who blew up pylons on all four transmission lines have been preventing engineers from carrying out repairs.
Russia has responded angrily, announcing that it was cutting off natural gas and coal shipments to Ukraine in response to the power outage.
Based on reporting by Reuters and Interfax
President Petro Poroshenko and European Council President Donald Tusk discussed a potential visa-free regime between Ukraine and the European Union on the sidelines of the UN Climate Summit in Paris today.
According to Poroshenko’s press service, the Ukrainian president told Tusk that Russia and the separatists it supports continue to ignore the Minsk agreement.
Poroshenko and Tusk agreed that sanctions against Russia should be imposed until Moscow fulfills its obligations under the Minsk agreement.
The press-service of the European Council president has yet to comment about the meeting in detail.
Monitors Say Elections In Two Eastern Ukraine Cities Held Properly
A nongovernmental group of international election monitors says delayed local elections on November 29 were conducted in accordance with laws and regulations in the eastern Ukrainian cities of Mariupol and Krasnoarmiisk.
The European Network of Election Monitoring Organizations (ENEMO) said on November 30 that high voter turnout in the two cities indicated the population's engagement in political developments.
Ukraine's Central Election Commission says voter turnout was 34.6 percent in Mariupol and 34.5 percent in Krasnoarmiisk.
The two cities, which both are in government-held territory of eastern Ukraine's turbulent Donetsk region, were supposed to conduct local elections in October.
But polling stations did not open there during the October vote because of disputes over ballots.
Much of the Donetsk region and the neighboring Luhansk region are controlled by Russia-backed separatists.
Self-styled separatist leaders have agreed to postpone their own elections until sometime in 2016.