Here's an update from our news desk:
Russia has reportedly started building a major military base in Belgorod Oblast near the Ukrainian border.
Reuters reports that on September 7 workmen were erecting a fence near the small town of Valuyki to mark out the perimeter.
Citing public documents, the news agency said the Defense Ministry is building the base on a 300-hectare site.
The facility is to house ammunition depots and barracks for 3,500 soldiers, as well as a recreation center with a skating rink and a swimming pool.
The ministry plans to use the base to train soldiers on artillery and army air defense, as well as in driving armored vehicles. The plan includes a site for studying the tactics of the U.S. military.
Kyiv and the West accuse Russia of sending soldiers and hardware to eastern Ukraine to support pro-Russian separatists fighting government forces. Moscow denies its military is in Ukraine.
(Reuters)
Good morning. We'll start the live blog today with this update from our news desk on the latest diplomatic dealings:
The leaders of Russia, Ukraine, Germany, and France discussed the contentious issue of holding local elections in separatist eastern Ukraine in a 90-minute telephone conversation on September 9, the Kremlin said.
Under the Minsk peace agreement, the separatist regions must conduct local elections by the end of the year "in accordance with Ukrainian legislation and the law of Ukraine."
The Russian-backed rebels, however, want to hold local elections on their own terms, which include barring all pro-Ukrainian candidates and holding the polls on days that do not correspond to local elections planned in the rest of Ukraine on October 25.
Ukrainian leaders have warned that any attempt to hold "unlawful" elections in rebel-run areas would violate the February peace deal -- a point on which German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande agreed, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko's office said.
With foreign ministers from the four countries due to meet in Berlin on September 12, German government spokesman Steffen Seibert said "the immediate task is to reach an agreement on the date and conditions of local elections in Donbass."
(AFP, TASS, Interfax)
This ends our live blogging for September 9. Be sure to check back tomorrow for our continuing coverage.
Clinton urges tougher response to Russia on Ukraine:
Hillary Clinton, the former U.S. secretary of state who is now a leading contender to be the next president, has called for a stronger response to Russia's actions in Ukraine and Syria, saying Moscow's objectives were "to stymie, to confront, and to undermine American power whenever and wherever."
In thinly veiled criticism of President Barack Obama's administration and its current approach to Russia, Clinton said that Washington should be doing more in response to Russia's interference in Ukraine.
"I have been, I remain convinced that we need a concerted effort to really up the costs on Russia and in particular on Putin. I think we have not done enough," she said following a speech on September 9 at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.
"I am in the category of people who wanted us to do more in response to the annexation of Crimea and the continuing destabilization of Ukraine."
Russia took over Crimea from Ukraine in March 2014, after sending troops and staging a referendum denounced as illegitimate by the United States and about 100 other countries.
The United States says Russia has sent troops and weapons into eastern Ukraine to support separatists in a conflict that has killed more than 7,900 people since April 2014.
"We can't dance around it anymore. We all wish it would go away," she said. "We all wish Putin would choose to modernize his country and move toward the West instead of sinking himself into historical roots of tsar-like behavior, and intimidation along national borders and projecting Russian power in places like Syria and elsewhere."
The comments by Clinton, who served as Obama's secretary of state from 2009 until February 2013, bore similarities to sentiments being voiced with growing frequency by other candidates, particularly Republicans.
Clinton faces several other Democrats also seeking the party's nomination to be its candidate in the November 2016 election.
None of the announced candidates has had as much experience shaping Russia policy as Clinton, who helped put Obama's first term "reset" of relations with Moscow in place.
Clinton said some achievements were made while Dmitry Medvedev was in office as Russian president from 2008-2012, including the New START nuclear arms-control pact and enhanced cooperation on transit of U.S. arms and materiel to Afghanistan.
But she said Putin's return to the Kremlin changed that.
"I think Russia's objectives are to stymie and to confront and undermine American power whenever and wherever they can. I don't think there's much to be surprised about them," she said.
"We have to do more to get back talking about how to we try to confine, contain, deter Russian aggression in Europe and beyond," she said. "And try to figure out what are the best tools for doing that. And don't lose sight of the Arctic because we're going to have a lot of issues up there as well."