Russia and representatives of the separatist-held territory in Ukraine's Donetsk region have said they are against putting UN peacekeepers in the Donbas region.
Economist Anders Aslund says that despite the known difficulties, there are positive prospects for the Ukrainian economy in 2016.
The cultural center in the town of Slovyansk was broken into and robbed.
An AFP report:
Russia has blocked the transit of Ukrainian goods heading to other countries, Kiev officials said Saturday after the two neighbouring nations imposed food embargoes in their mutual trade war.
"The transit of Ukrainian goods has not yet begun", having been blocked since the start of the new year, the spokeswoman for Ukraine's infrastructure ministry, Kristina Nikolayeva, told AFP.
The ministry said that since January 1, under new Russian regulations, Ukrainian goods headed for Central Asia or China can only enter Russia via Belarus. They must also be sealed to prevent them from being unloaded in Russia.
A Russian embargo on Ukrainian food imports took effect on January 1, with Kiev issuing mirror sanctions in response.
Moscow has also barred Ukraine from a free-trade zone linking numerous ex-Soviet countries.
Russia introduced the latest measures on transit of goods without explaining how they should be implemented, with officials absent during public holidays lasting until Monday, said Nikolayeva.
"They brought in these transit rules but didn't prepare a mechanism for how exactly this will work: what kind of seals are needed, what kind of control measures are needed. As a result Russia is not letting Ukrainian trucks across its border," she said.
At present, "we are recommending our carriers not to send anything in that direction," Nikolayeva added.
Ukraine's trade representative Natalia Mykolska has complained that the transit problem is holding up trade with partners such as Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan and Mongolia.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk on Wednesday discussed the problem with his Kazakh counterpart Karim Massimov, the government press service said.
Yatsenyuk said he would inform the World Trade Organisation of the "unlawful actions of the Russian Federation regarding the transit of Ukrainian goods" and would ask the global trade body to "respond to such actions."
Ukrainian officials reporting no casualties in the past day:
KYIV. Jan 9 (Interfax) -- No casualties were registered among the
Ukrainian military in the area of the military operation in southeastern
Ukraine in the past 24 hours, Ukrainian presidential administration
official Andriy Lysenko said.
"None of our troops were killed or wounded in action in the past 24
hours," he told a briefing in Kyiv on Saturday.
Lysenko said 29 attacks on Ukrainian positions were registered in
the past 24 hours.
He said the cease-fire regime remains in place on the Luhansk track
and there was shooting on the Donetsk track. Specifically, fire was
opened on Ukrainian positions in the Troitske, Novhogorske and Luhanske
area. Three ceasefire breaches were registered on the Mariupol track,
where fire was opened using firearms.
That concludes our live blogging for January 9, 2016. Please join us tomorrow for more news.