From the Crimean Unit of RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service:
Police in Crimea have detained a well-known blogger who has strongly criticized Russia's annexation of the peninsula from Ukraine.
Yelizaveta Bohutskaya has been a contributor to RFE/RL's Crimean desk under the name Liza Bohutski.
Her husband, Oles Bohutskyy, told RFE/RL that their apartment in Simferopol had been searched by police accompanied by security troops with assault rifles.
He said police explained that the apartment was searched because Bohutskaya had been among people who greeted the leader of Crimean Tatars, Mustafa Dzhemilev, near the administrative boundary between Crimea and continental Ukraine in May.
Russia has barred Dzhemilev from Crimea and about 100 people who greeted him in May are being investigated.
Police looked for drugs, guns, and "banned books." Bohutskaya was detained and taken away and her computers, memory sticks, cameras, and GPS devices were confiscated.
From the wires:
ITAR-TASS quotes Andriy Lysenko, a spokesperson for Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council, as saying both sides in the Ukraine conflict have started the process of exchanging prisoners.
"The process has started. It is already under way," Lysenko said. "Ukraine's Security Service has set up a center to gather daily information about detained Ukrainian servicemen," adding some progress had already been made.
Lysenko, however, did not give any concrete figures on the number of prisoners of war or set any specific dates when the prisoner exchange could begin.
Destroyed vehicles littered the road near a checkpoint in the southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol after artillery shells struck a checkpoint late on September 6. The shelling claimed the first civilian casualty since the start of a cease-fire on September 5. (Video by RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service)
Amnesty International Secretary-General Salil Shetty speaking on September 7 in Kyiv:
"What we have [are] new satellite images which we've acquired, and it's quite clear that there's direct and active influence of Russia. Russia can't deny not being a party to the conflict anymore. Very systematic, well-organized mobile artillery and armored units in place. There's no way the separatist forces could have organized that themselves."
"On top of that, we also have eyewitness accounts of movement of Russian tanks across the border. So, I think really that it's not deniable anymore. As far as we are concerned, it's an international conflict."
"This is our main call on the Ukrainian government: That obviously, particularly when they recapture some territory, it's really important for them not to behave in the same way that separatist forces with Russian backing are behaving."