This ends our live blogging for February 13. Be sure to check back tomorrow for our continuing coverage.
By the summer, Ukraine hopes it can repair the damaged navy vessels returned by Russia in November 2019. Russia seized three Ukrainian boats and their crews off Crimea in 2018 near the Kerch Strait.
Ukrainian envoy says Russian helicopter fired on navy vessel in 2018:
A ballistics test has found that a Russian combat helicopter allegedly fired an armor-piercing projectile at one of the three Ukrainian Navy vessels in the Black Sea in 2018 that Russia impounded, said Ukraine's deputy envoy to international organizations in Vienna, Ihor Lossovskiy.
Speaking at a forum on security held by the Organization for Security and Cooperation Europe (OSCE), the Ukrainian diplomat said that the "shell hole on the armored cutter Berdyansk arose as a result of a direct hit by an armored-piercing projectile fired from a Russian Ka-52 helicopter," Ukrainian news agency Ukrinform reported on February 13.
Lossovskiy didn't specify which of the two versions of the Ka-52 helicopter allegedly attacked the vessel.
Russia's military uses the Ka-52 Alligator attack helicopter, designed for ground assault, and has a newer amphibious version called the Ka-52 Katran that can be deployed on ships.
Both aircraft are equipped with armor-piercing rounds and capable of launching air-to-surface missiles.
Lossovskiy said the findings "clearly confirm the aggressive and illegal nature of the actions taken by Russia in the Black Sea in November 2018."
At the time of the incident, Russia insisted the Ukrainian Navy vessels were violating its territorial waters and refused to obey instructions.
Ukraine called the attack and subsequent capture of 24 crewmen aboard the ships a violation of international maritime law.
On May 25, the UN's maritime tribunal ordered Russia to immediately release the crewmen and impounded boats, a ruling that Moscow ignored.
The Ukrainian crewmen were released on September 7 and Russia returned the three severely damaged ships on November 19 in very poor condition.
'When Suicide Becomes Logical': Inside A Separatist-Run Prison In Ukraine's Donetsk
By Stanislav Aseyev
Stanislav Aseyev, 30, is a journalist, blogger, and member of the Ukrainian PEN Club. After his native city of Donetsk, in eastern Ukraine, fell under the control of Russia-backed separatist militants in May 2014, he continued reporting from there for various Ukrainian media, including RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service.
On June 2, 2017, he was abducted by the self-proclaimed Donetsk authorities. His case prompted an international outcry among human rights and journalists' organizations.
In October 2019, a de facto court in Donetsk convicted Aseyev of "organizing an extremist organization" and espionage, sentencing him to 15 years in prison. He was included in a prisoner exchange between the separatists and Kyiv on November 15, 2019.
In all, Aseyev spent 962 days in captivity, most of it at a prison in Donetsk called Isolation. During his captivity, he began writing a book describing his experiences, but the first manuscript was confiscated. He began writing a second time. When he was released in the prisoner exchange, a fellow prisoner, tank crewman Bohdan Pantyushenko, helped Aseyev smuggle out the manuscript by hiding it among the letters he'd received from his wife.
RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service is publishing Aseyev's manuscript in Russian. Here, RFE/RL presents an excerpt in English.