Here's an update from RFE/RL's news desk:
A top United Nations official has said the death toll in the Ukraine conflict has soared past 3,000.
The Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights Ivan Simonovic told the UN Human Rights Council today that the current registered death toll, as of September 21, is 3,543.
Simonovic said the actual number is likely to be "significantly higher."
Not counting the 298 victims of the Malaysian plane crash in july, the official toll stands at 3,245.
The previous death toll of the five months of fighting between government forces and pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine was 2,600.
(AFP, ITAR-TASS)
Renewed fighting between Ukraine troops and pro-Russian separatists broke out on the night of September 21 and the following day near the city of Debaltseve in Ukraine's Donetsk region. A military commander said there had been casualties in his unit. The violence came as Ukrainian government forces were preparing to withdraw artillery and armored vehicles from a proposed 30-kilometer buffer zone. (Video by Levko Stek, RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service)
Retired navy officer Yury Mishin says he was on the verge of tears when he realised Crimea might be incorporated into Russia. “I remember how back in the service days I was thrilled every time I heard the Soviet anthem while lining up on the deck of my nuclear missile carrier for the morning check. It was the very same feeling”.
Ukraine's separatists are planning local elections, our news desk reports:
Pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine say they will elect leaders and legislatures on November 2.
Aleksandr Zakharchenko, prime minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, told the Interfax news agency, "On November 2 we plan elections for the Supreme Soviet [parliament] and elections for the leader of the republic."
Separatists in the neighboring Luhansk region also said they would hold elections on the same day.
Speaking on September 23, Zakharchenko said that separatists would not allow other elections, including next month's poll for Ukraine's parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, to take place on the territory under their control.
The Ukrainian parliamentary election has been scheduled for October 26.
Ukraine has granted separatist-held areas limited self-rule for three years as part of an effort to end an armed conflict that has killed more than 3,000 people in eastern Ukraine since April. (AFP and Interfax)
From our news desk:
The commander of Russia's Black Sea Fleet says 80 more new warships will be added to the force by 2020, bringing the total to 206.
In comments made to President Vladimir Putin on September 23 as he visited the port city of Novorossiisk, Vice Admiral Aleksandr Vitko also said a second base for the fleet will be completed near Novorossiisk by 2016.
This will be in addition to the main base at Sevastopol on the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in March.
Russia began builfing the Novorossiisk base long before the annexation, when Ukrainian authorities were seeking to limit how long the Russian Navy could use the Sevastopol base.
Vitko said the new base was still needed because of what he said was NATO's expanded presence in the Black Sea. (Reuters and Interfax)