Here's a video from Vitaly Portnikov of RFE/RL's Russian Service who was speaking with Mikheil Saakashvili. The fomer Georgian President, who now governs the Odesa region in Ukraine, says Kremlin animosity toward his country was driven by the success of his pro-Western reforms.
We are now closing the live blog for today. Until we resume again tomorrow morning, you can keep up with all our other Ukraine coverage here.
Good morning. Some Ukraine news from last night. On the stolen Dutch paintings.
Ukraine's police chief invited the Netherlands to help find a trove of Dutch 17th century paintings that was stolen from a Dutch museum.
Khatia Denakoidze told reporters December 10 that her office is waiting for an official request from Dutch prosecutors and that Ukraine welcomes Dutch investigators to join the police hunt.
The Westfries Museum in the northern town of Hoorn said that 24 Dutch Golden Age paintings snatched in a burglary in January 2005 had been found in a villa in a Ukrainian-controlled part of Donbass and are being offered for sale.
The museum said men from an Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists battalion fighting Russian-backed separatists showed the Dutch embassy a picture of one of the stolen works and demanded 50 million euros for the paintings' return -- a sum that they later reduced considerably.
The nationalist group denied holding the artworks and Ukraine's chief prosecutor launched an investigation.
We had a feature yesterday looking the case's connection with the Dutch referendum.
Russia Says Will Stay In IMF Despite 'Politicization'
Russia officials said they will stay in the International Monetary Fund despite the fund's 'political' motives for changing its rules this week so Ukraine could more easily skip payments on its debt to Russia.
"This is a very important and necessary institution, especially in today's challenging situation in the world economy," Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov told reporters in Moscow December 10.
"I think it would make no sense whatsoever to pull out of the Fund. We'll remain key participants in this important international financial institution, as we always have been."
Siluanov's remarks came the same day he raised questions about the "impartiality" of the IMF because it dropped a rule on December 8 that forbids the fund from lending to member countries that are in arrears on loans from other sovereign nations.
The move was widely seen as helping Ukraine in its efforts to force Russia to write down its debts, although the IMF said it had been contemplating the rule change since 2013.
"Well-founded principles should be changed only after due consideration, and not in response to the politics of the moment," Siluanov wrote in the Financial Times December 10.
"Imagine if the Greek government had insisted that [European Union] institutions accept the same haircut as the country's private creditors," he wrote.
"The reaction in European capitals would have been frosty. Yet this is the position now taken by Kyiv with respect to Ukraine's $3 billion eurobond held by Russia."
Russian Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev also questioned the IMF's impartiality recently, saying the fund "has for the first time in its history taken a decision...solely for political reasons."
The $3 billion debt held by Russia is coming due December 20 and Moscow has demanded repayment in full, spurning Ukraine's offers to restructure it.
Russia has vowed to go to court if Ukraine defaults, but recently President Vladimir Putin signalled that Russia might agree to a restructuring if the United States or European Union provides gaurantees on the deal.
With reporting by AFP, Interfax, and TASS