We are now closing the live blog for today, but we'll be back again tomorrow morning to follow all the latest developments. Until then, you can keep up with all our other Ukraine coverage here.
Here's more from RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service on the country's declining population:
Ukraine's Population Shrinks By Nearly A Quarter
A so-called electronic census found Ukraine’s population has dwindled by almost a quarter since 2001, driven by migration, death rates exceeding birth rates, but also because it was impossible to count residents in Russia-occupied Crimea and the territories in the country's east that Kyiv doesn’t control.
"There are 37.3 million people living in Ukraine," Dmytro Dubilet, the minister of the Cabinet of Ministers, said at a briefing in Kyiv on January 23.
Dubilet said the electronic census data was gleaned from a variety of sources, including mobile phone operators, sociologists, the statistical research of households, public registries, and the pension fund.
The new figures as of December 1 represent a decrease of 11.2 million or 23 percent since 2001 -- the last year an official census was conducted.
In 1991, when Ukraine gained independence from the Soviet Union, Ukraine had close to 52 million inhabitants.
In the past decade, 3.8 million Ukrainians left the country and didn’t return, Dubilet said.
Ukraine had 9.4 births per 1,000 people and 14.5 deaths per 1,000 people in 2017, according to the most recent data available from the World Bank.
Currently, there are 20 million women and 17 million men in the country. About 20 million people are of active working age at 25 to 64 years old.
Before Russia’s seizure of Crimea in 2014, the peninsula had 2 million inhabitants, whereas the densely populated easternmost Donetsk and Luhansk regions had nearly 6 million people before the Donbas conflict erupted.
The census's margin of error doesn’t exceed 2.86 percent, Dubilet said.
Based on reporting by DW, AFP, and Ukrayinska Pravda
Time now to point you in the direction of a new feature by RFE/RL correspondent Tony Wesolowsky:
From RFE/RL's news desk:
Media Freedom Groups Express Unease Over Ukrainian Disinformation Bill
Media freedom watchdogs and journalists’ associations are expressing concern over a bill aimed at combating Russian disinformation.
Critics say the draft law put forward by the Culture, Youth, and Sports Ministry on January 20 foresees excessive intrusion of governmental regulation and control in the sphere of media, and could be used to harass journalists.
In a statement on January 23, the Representative on Freedom of the Media for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Harlem Desir said he understood "the need to fight against disinformation” in Ukraine at a time when the country is facing a Russia-backed insurgency in the easternmost regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.
"But this should not be done at the expense of media freedom and through state interference in the content of the media and in the organization of journalism activities in the country," Desir added.
The Nation Union of Journalists of Ukraine (NUJU) warned that the bill on "amendments to certain legal acts of Ukraine aimed to provide national information security and right to access to truthful information" would legalize state interference in the journalistic profession and restrict media workers' rights.
According to the bill, criminal punishment for spreading disinformation could range from large fines to prison sentences of up to seven years.
But NUJU head Serhiy Tomilenko said some provisions such as the issuance of press cards have "nothing to do with Russian aggression."
Journalists would be required to receive their press accreditation through a state-sponsored agency, while a media monitor would be tasked with imposing fines and blocking online media, among other sanctions, Tomilenko said.
Professional status would be conferred or denied to journalists based on adherence to the Code of Journalistic Ethics.
The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) and other media watchdogs advised the Ukrainian government to stay out of the activities of media outlets and allow them to self-regulate.
"The state should create conditions for this process [self-regulation and autonomy] by avoiding any governmental interference and not deprive journalists of their rights," said EFJ General Secretary Ricardo Gutierrez.
To combat disinformation, the government should promote "self-regulation, support for professional standards of journalism and fact-checking initiatives, independence of the media, diversity of sources to debunk false information, and the development of media literacy," Desir said.