From Reuters on today's "buffer-zone" talks:
Talks began on Friday to mark out a 30-km (19-mile) buffer zone between Ukrainian government forces and pro-Russian separatists in the country's east, but Moscow was coy about its role and denied that Russian military officials had taken part.
A statement by the military in Kiev said a Ukrainian team met a 76-member group of Russian officers north of the major Ukrainian city of Donetsk to work on establishing the zone, designed to put government and separatist forces out of striking range of each other.
"Today at 0800 a working group ... began its work. Representatives of the Ukrainian side, a monitoring group from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)and 76 Russian servicemen took part," a statement said.
An OSCE spokesman in Kiev, Michael Bociurkiw, said monitors from the 57-nation security and rights watchdog had observed Ukrainian and Russian military officers at preliminary talks in the town of Soledar.
Effectively: "We were there. We watched and listened. We're here to help. Please end the bloodshed."
From our correspondent in Brussels, @RikardJozwiak, via the newsroom:
BRUSSELS -- The European Union, Ukraine, and Russia have agreed on an interim solution for natural gas flows which could prevent energy shortages in both Ukraine and EU countries this winter.
Speaking after a trilateral meeting in Berlin, EU Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger said Ukraine must pay $2 billion to Russia by the end of October and another $1.1 billion at the end of the year for outstanding bills.
If Moscow receives the 2 billion at the end of October plus a prepayment for new gas at $385 per 1,000 cubic meters of gas, Russia will deliver 5 billion cubic meters of gas to Ukraine.
If Kyiv wins its case at the Stockholm Court of Arbitration next year, it doesn't have to pay more than the $3.1 billion it is expected to pay by the end of 2014.
If Russia wins, Kyiv has to pay an additional $2.1 billion.
More from our newsroom on Grybauskait's criticism of Moscow in New York:
Addressing the United Nations General Assembly, Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite denounced Russia's "illegal acts of aggression" in Ukraine.
Speaking on September 26, Grybauskaite also called on the international community to protect Ukraine’s sovereignty.
In an interview with "The Washington Post” newspaper released on September 25, Grybauskaite said Russia is acting like a "terrorist" in Ukraine and in its intimidation of other neighbors.
She also criticized the West for a lack of leadership in standing up both to Russia in Ukraine and the Islamic State extremist group in Syria and Iraq.
Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimean peninsula in March rattled nerves in Lithuania and its fellow Baltic states, Latvia and Estonia.
The three former Soviet republics won independence in 1991 and joined NATO and the European Union in 2004 in a bid to secure their independence.
With reporting by AFP
From AFP and ITAR-TASS on results of the gas talks today in Berlin:
The EU says Russian gas giant Gazprom is prepared to send Ukraine some 5 billion cubic meters of gas when Kyiv pays some $2 billion next month. EU Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger says more trilateral talks are planned for next week.
Addressing the UN General Assembly, Lithuania's President Dalia Grybauskaite says the international community must protect Ukraine's sovereignty. She also denounces Russia's "illegal acts of aggression" in Ukraine.
Via Interfax, which describes the "purpose" of the September 21 rally as "protest[ing] against violations of the Russian Constitution and norms of international law," thus avoiding any mention of the demonstrators' objection to Russian actions vis-a-vis Ukraine:
Forty-nine percent of Russians surveyed by Levada Center said they do not support the so-called "Peace March," a protest conducted by the opposition. Twenty-nine percent of the respondents said they support it and 23% are undecided.
In response to President Obama's remarks before the UN General Assembly on Wednesday, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev -- who has tried and failed to launch political parties on three occasions since he was pushed aside by Russian President Boris Yeltsin -- had this to say about the United States. (Obama listed Russian aggression alongside the outbreak of Ebola hemorrhagic fever in West Africa and the threat from Islamic State militants in the Middle East as the "tests of this moment.")
"We have one main virus: it's America and its leadership ambitions," Gorbachev told Russian radio, according to Interfax.
He added:
"It's not even political dialogue, it's badmouthing. They want to hurt and provoke, and the main thing is that the conflicts in Europe should continue. For this reason, they [the U.S.] have ambitions to have a monopoly. Ukraine and other things are just pretexts," Gorbachev said.
On a "new cold war," he said: "There is no cold war, but there are indications of it. We don't need a cold war. Such things last for decades and it's difficult for our citizens."