Latest from our news desk on the Party of Regions not taking part in upcoming parliamentary elections:
The former political party of ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych says it will not take part in early parliamentary elections, scheduled for October 26.
Party of Regions Executive Secretary Borys Kolesnikov said on September 14 that the party’s political council has “decided against taking part in the elections" in the midst of a war.
With a pro-Russia platform, the Party of Regions has its electoral and financial base primarily in eastern and southeastern Ukraine.
The party won 185 parliamentary seats in the 2012 elections and formed a parliamentary faction that included 210 deputies.
The party condemned and disassociated itself from Yanukovych on February 23.
Since then, more than 120 lawmakers have left the party’s parliamentary faction.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko dissolved the parliament in August and scheduled the October 26 vote, calling it a move toward "cleansing" the legislature.
Continuing from yesterday, still fighting around Donetsk airport:
Kyiv has accused pro-Russian separatists of jeopardizing Ukraine’s fragile peace process by intensifying attacks on government troops, despite a nine-day old cease-fire.
National Security and Defense Council spokesman Volodymyr Polyovy made the accusations on September 14, a day after Ukraine’s military said it repelled a separatist attack on Donetsk airport.
Polyovy’s remarks also come a day after Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk called on world leaders not to trust Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying the Kremlin wants to “eliminate” Ukraine as an independent country.
Yatsenyuk said Putin is deliberately trying to keep Ukraine in a state of war to create “another frozen conflict” as part of a long-term strategy to “restore the Soviet Union.”
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) says more international monitors and drone observation aircraft will be deployed in eastern Ukraine to monitor the skaky cease-fire.
Good morning. The main news overnight was the result of talks between Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko and Didier Burkhalter, Swiss president and current chairman of the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). In short, more drones and more monitors.
It's pretty quiet news wise. Barring any major developments, that concludes the live blogging for today.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, in a TV interview shown today, has dismissed as "nonsense" claims that "Russia is interested in creating another (breakaway region like Moldova's) Transdniester or a buffer zone (in eastern Ukraine)."
And in a reference to the latest Western sanctions, he accused the United States of "trying to use the crisis in Ukraine to break economic ties between the EU and Russia and force Europe to buy U.S. liquefied gas at much higher prices."