Just in:
Euromaidan, the Ukrainian pro-Europe movement that staged the Kyiv protests leading to the ouster of former President Viktor Yanukovych, has been awarded the 2014 Lech Walesa Award.
Vitali Klitschko, one of the protest leaders who is now mayor of Kyiv, accepted the award in Gdansk on behalf of the movement on September 29.
Lech Walesa, Poland's former president and the 1983 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has been handing out the annual $100,000 award since 2008 to support of human rights and democracy.
Walesa said this year's prize recognized Euromaidan and the "consequence and determination of thousands of Ukrainians" in expressing their "pro-European dream."
Rather than going to one individual, as in previous years, the2014 award to Euromaidan names 11 Ukrainians from the European movement.
Previous recipients of the prize have included Russian businessman Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Belarusian dissident Ales Byalyatski.
See here for more details.
RFE/RL's news desk has issued this item on the plight of Ukrainian film director Oleh Sentsov, who was arrested in Crimea shortly after its annexation on terrorism charges:
A Moscow court has extended the pretrial detention of Ukrainian film director Oleh Sentsov, who was arrested in Crimea shortly after its annexation and accused of plotting terrorist attacks.
The Lefortovo District Court ruled on September 29 that Sentsov's pretrial detention be extended until January 11.
Sentsov and three other Ukrainian citizens were arrested in May on suspicion of planning terrorist attacks in Crimea's major cities of Simferopol, Yalta, and Sevastopol.
Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in March after a controversial referendum that was condemned as illegal by the United States, the European Union, and the UN General Assembly.
On September 10, the chief of Ukraine's Security Service, Valentyn Nalyvaychenko, said Sentsov was on a list of people to be exchanged for pro-Russian rebels captured by Ukrainian forces in the conflict in eastern Ukraine.
(Interfax, RIA Novosti)
Latest Levada poll: 42% of Russians believe reports that Russian soldiers have been killed fighting in Ukraine, 31% don't believe them.
— Steve Rosenberg (@BBCSteveR) September 29, 2014
"Kyiv Post" correspondent Ian Bateson has been writing for Russia Magazine about life under an uneasy cease-fire in Donetsk:
During a rain storm in Donetsk it is forgivable to mistake the booming of artillery for thunder. It is the regularity and the repetition that gives it away.
Despite a ceasefire deal signed to much fanfare by Ukrainian President Poroshenko and the leaders of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, the fighting in eastern Ukraine hasn’t stopped. In Donetsk there is both incoming and outgoing artillery, but the pace of the exchanges, at least, has slowed considerably.
Amidst those booms Donetsk is a city trying to find a new rhythm. The vast majority of businesses and shops are closed, it is next to impossible to take out cash from an ATM or bank, and windows everywhere are crossed with the clear tape Xs meant to keep them from shattering when the next boom, one closer, goes off. But, amidst all of that people are trickling back into the city.
The return of some of Donetsk’s former residents is less of a vote of confidence in the city than an attempt to size it up. Though many have fled across the Russian border or deeper into Ukraine with no intention of coming back, others instead extended their already planned summer holidays, taking their kids out of the city to wait things out before deciding. Now those people are coming back to inspect their homes and businesses and see if they can get by in DNR Donetsk.
Read the entire article here
Good piece RT @agatapyzik: My piece why Soviet memorials have nowt to do w Putin http://t.co/0OoVdgK8hO
— Shaun Walker (@shaunwalker7) September 29, 2014
Voice of America: 12 dead as rebels defy eastern #Ukraine cease-fire http://t.co/1w2bYUo7s9
— Kyiv Post (@KyivPost) September 29, 2014
It's telling th the ones most vocal in condemning the Lenin toppling come fr the country where Dzerzhinski's statue was recently reinstalled
— Evgen Vorobiov (@vorobyov) September 29, 2014
Apparently. "Hunter" does "not appear homesick but misses his favourite burgers."
Reuters found that American from the video fighting for the eastern Ukraine rebels. @KyivPost http://t.co/Q9eoldV9e8 pic.twitter.com/B9udk3f7rC
— Alec Luhn (@ASLuhn) September 29, 2014