An item from RFE/RL's news desk that is bound to be of interest to Ukraine-watchers:

Ukraine Sending Its Youngest Research Team To Antarctica In March

Ukraine is sending its youngest ever expeditionary team to Antarctica in March, the Ministry of Education and Science said in a press release on January 20.

The average age of the 25th Ukrainian Antarctic expedition is 37 years. The 12-person team will be based at the Vernadskiy Research Base, which Ukraine bought from Britain in 1996 for 1 pound.

"We want to give young people as much chance to further themselves and their scientific potential," said Yevhen Dykiy, head of the ministry's National Antarctic Center. "And for the same reason, half of the staff are 'newcomers,' meaning they will go to Antarctica for the first time this year."

The expedition consists of seven scientists, a doctor, a cook, a systems mechanic, a diesel electrician engineer, and a system communications administrator.

Two members of the team are women.

Yuriy Otrub, a specialist at the National Antarctic Center, will lead the expedition and it will be his sixth winter at the research base.

A tweet from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's spokeswoman:

Good morning. We'll get the live blog rolling today with a couple of news stories that were filed overnight by our desk in Washington:

Britain 'Regretful' Ukrainian State Symbol Appears In Police's 'Extremist' Guide

A statement by the British government says it is aware that Ukraine's national symbol appears in a British police guide for identifying extremist symbols and that it is "regretful" of the fact.

"We are aware and regretful of the insult caused by the appearance of the Ukrainian Trident in the British police's visual guide," a U.K. government spokesperson said late on January 20 in a statement on the Facebook page of the British Embassy in Ukraine. "As stated by the police, the document clearly states that many of the symbols contained therein are of no interest in the fight against terrorism."

Written in the Ukrainian language, the statement further said the British authorities "deeply respect the official symbols of Ukrainian statehood…We recognize the Trident as a major element of the state emblem of Ukraine, which has constitutional, historical, and cultural significance for the people of Ukraine."

The statement came a day after the Ukrainian Embassy in Britain publicly called on police officials to remove the trident, Ukraine's national symbol and state coat of arms, from a counterterrorism guide that was distributed to police officers, teachers, and medical staff last year.

The statement was in reference to a 24-page guide that British authorities produced while giving anti-extremism briefings last year to help front-line officers discern signs and symbols.

The daily newspaper The Guardian first reported on the guide's contents earlier this month.

Metropolitan Police Deputy Assistance Commissioner Dean Haydon told the BBC that the visual aid was produced in order to help police "identify and understand signs and symbols" so they could tell the difference between them.

In a statement, he said that many groups listed in the guide "are not of counterterrorism interest."

Based on reporting by The Guardian, BBC, UNIAN, and Interfax

Ukrainian Monitors Record 137 Episodes Of Violence, Confrontation By Ultraright Groups

There were 137 recorded incidents of confrontation and violence committed by ultraright groups in Ukraine over a one-year period from October 14, 2018, a monitoring report by a Ukrainian public advocacy organization stated.

Conducted by the Kyiv-based Institute Respublica and financed by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation in Germany, the report on January 20 stated that most acts of violence and confrontation during the one-year period were committed by two groups: C14 and National Corps.

Forty such cases were attributed to C14, of which 25 were "of a violent nature," including 10 violent incidents toward people.

Thirty episodes were attributed to National Corps, the political wing of the far-right Azov movement, of which 21 were of a violent nature, including 15 toward people.

According to Oksana Dutchak, Institute Respublica’s resident sociologist, the group documented 48 cases of a "confrontational nature" and 89 incidents of violence toward people or property.

The most incidents of violence and confrontation -- 23 -- were recorded in November 2018.

There were 14 incidents of violence committed against feminist or lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender activists; 13 against political party members; 12 against representatives of state or law enforcement institutions; four against journalists; four against business representatives; three against artists; and two against ethnic minorities or migrants.

"Ultraright violence continues to be systematic, regular and, with very rare exceptions, committed with impunity," Maksym Butkevych, a human rights activist and coordinator of the Without Borders project, told RFE/RL. "Impunity encourages a continuance of violent practices; it 'beckons' those who resort to violence…to do it again."

The National Corps Party and its semimilitary wing, the National Militia, belong to the so-called Azov movement. The latter was established by radically-minded former soldiers of the current Azov National Guard special purpose unit.

Azov started off in 2014 as a volunteer battalion, which fought in important battles against Russia-backed forces in eastern Ukraine, including in the liberation of the port city Mariupol, the Donetsk region's second-largest city.

The U.S. State Department last year labeled the National Corps and C14 as "nationalist hate groups."