From our newsroom:
Japan said September 24 that it is imposing additional sanctions on Russia in line with steps taken by other nations, including its key ally the United States.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said the new measures include banning certain Russian banks from issuing securities in Japan and increasing inspections to prevent arms being shipped to Russia.
Japan imposed sanctions after Russia's annexation of the Crimean peninsula in March but they were lighter than those of the European Union or United States.
Yoshihide Suga also said Tokyo Japan planned to lodge a diplomatic protest after a group of senior Russian government officials on September 24 visited one of the four disputed Kuril islands off northern Japan.
President Vladimir Putin's chief of staff, Sergei Ivanov, was among the group who visited Iturup island, known as Etorofu in Japan.
The four Russian-administered Kuril islands are also claimed by Japan.
Based on reporting by Reuters, dpa, and Itar-Tass
From Reuters:
NATO SAYS THERE HAS BEEN "SIGNIFICANT PULLBACK" OF RUSSIAN FORCES FROM INSIDE UKRAINE, MANY THOUSANDS OF TROOPS REMAIN DEPLOYED NEAR BORDER
From ITAR-TASS. I believe the sources for the claim of the mass grave are pro-Russian separatists:
The Russian Investigative Committee will look into the mass burial discovered at a warehouse of the Donetsk Kommunar mine.
"Information about the killing of citizens whose bodies have been found in a mass grave near Donetsk will be verified by the Main Investigative Department of the Russian Investigative Committee as a part of the criminal inquiry into the use of prohibited means and methods of war against the civilian population in south-eastern Ukraine," Russian Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin told Interfax on Wednesday.
Russian authorities cite the need for careful adherence to the law in a case in which the defendant, an active-duty foreign servicewoman, was reportedly abducted at gunpoint by client insurrectionists, mistreated, smuggled illegally across an international border to be handed over to a foreign government, and denied counsel and consular access, before being put on trial under Russian law for an alleged offense on foreign soil.
From Interfax:
The Ukrainian pilot Nadezhda Savchenko is to undergo a psychiatric examination as part of a criminal inquiry into the killing of Russian journalists, Russian Investigative Committee (RIC) spokesman Vladimir Markin told Interfax, when asked to comment on such reports.
"Savchenko who is charged under Article 105 (murder) of the Russian Criminal Code is to undergo a psychiatric examination as part of the criminal inquiry. This is a standard procedure and mandatory requirement of Russian criminal proceedings legislation (Article 196 of the Russian Criminal Proceedings Code) in cases where a person is charged with a very serious crime," Markin said.
"Savchenko and her defense lawyer have been duly informed of the order to undergo an in-hospital psychiatric examination that will be conducted in Moscow," the RIC spokesman said.
EuroMaidanPR citing the latest military status report from pro-Kyiv blogger Dmitry Tymchuk: