via @ChristopherJM
Very popular meme today:
RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service video of government forces and Russian-backed rebels exchanging 19 prisoners at a checkpoint near the town of Schastia, north of Luhansk, yesterday. A prisoner released by separatists was visibly shaken but said he'd been treated well. Small exchanges of this kind are an occasional occurrence in the conflict. A cease-fire has been in place since September 5, but has often been broken.
One of Ukraine's new parliamentarians, widely respected investigative reporter Mustafa Nayyem, in an effort to highlight what he clearly regards as a contributor to the country's corruption problem, says he "can't survive on 6.5 thousand" hryvnyas, equivalent to around $500.
Ukraine's president says: "I don't require a court loyal to the president. I and the whole society need a court that protects the law and the citizen."
From the newsroom:
Arseniy Yatsenyuk has suggested he is likely to stay on as Ukraine's prime minister after a new government is formed.
Yatsenyuk told a press conference on October 29 that "the party which has secured first place in the elections is obliged to begin the process of forming a coalition…the leader of (this) party heads the government."
With 98 percent of the votes cast in Ukraine's October 26 parliamentary election, Yatsenyuk's People's Front party led with 22.2 percent.
President Petro Proshenko's bloc had 21.8 percent.
Yatsenyuk said it was time to start discussions with potential coalition partners, naming Poroshenko's bloc, former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko's Batkivshchyna Party, the Samopomich (Self-Reliance) Party of Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi, and Oleh Lyashko's Radical Party.
Yatsenyuk said potential members of the coalition should have their list of nominees for cabinet posts ready by November 3.
Based on reporting by UNIAN, Reuters, and Interfax