From RFE/RL's news desk:
Russia has test-fired a Sineva intercontinental ballistic missile from a submarine in the Barents Sea as part of tests on the reliability of the navy's strategic forces.
The Russian Defense Ministry said the liquid-fueled missile, capable of carrying nuclear warheads, was fired by the submarine "Tula" and targeted a testing range in the Kamchatka region on the Pacific Ocean.
The Sineva, which has a range of about 12,000 kilometers, became operable in 2007 as part of Moscow's efforts to shore up Russia's nuclear deterrent.
This test-firing was the second ICBM launch from a Russian nuclear submarine in the past week.
President Vladimir Putin has underlined the importance of the nuclear deterrent during Moscow's standoff with the West over the Ukraine crisis.
Flash from Reuters:
GERMANY'S MERKEL SAYS SEES NO POSSIBILITY OF LIFTING ECONOMIC SANCTIONS AGAINST RUSSIA OVER UKRAINE
From AFP:
New European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker said Wednesday he would visit Kiev on his first trip outside the European Union, amid the ongoing crisis in Ukraine.
"I will be going to the Ukraine, I don't yet know when," Juncker told a press conference, adding he promised his "first bilateral outside the EU will be in Kiev."
From RFE/RL's News Desk:
Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk says Kyiv will cut off funding to the parts of eastern Ukraine held by pro-Russian separatists until "terrorists" leave.
But Yatsenyuk said at a cabinet meeting on November 5 that gas and electricity supplies to separatist-held areas in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions would continue to help "ordinary people" during the winter.
He said some $2.6 billion in government funds would be withheld from the separatist-controlled areas.
Yatsenyuk said separatist leaders who have defied the Ukrainian government by holding elections on November 2 should take care of themselves financially and that Kyiv would not fund "imposters and conmen."
He said financial aid -- including social payments -- would resume when Kyiv regains control of rebel-held territories.
Yatsenyuk also called on Moscow to stop supporting the separatists.
From RFE/RL's News Desk:
A Russian actor who caused outrage by firing a machine gun toward Ukrainian forces in a rebel-held part of eastern Ukraine while wearing patches identifying him as a journalist has received a public rebuke (seen in the video above) on stage after a performance.
During a curtain call at a prominent Moscow theater on November 4, a woman threw a toy pistol in Mikhail Porechenkov's direction and shouted: "Take it, Misha! You like to shoot Ukrainians -- come on, shoot me!"
The woman, Katerina Maldon, said she was an activist and wanted to make Porechenkov "understand what he has done."
Porechenkov did not react onstage.
He later described Maldon as mentally "deficient."
On October 31, Ukraine's Interior Ministry filed criminal charges against Porechenkov.
Russia's Union of Journalists called what he did "irresponsible" and demanded an apology.
Porechenkov said that it was a staged scene, that he was firing blanks, and that the bullet-resistant vest and helmet labeled "Press" were given to him by pro-Russian rebels.
Based on reporting by zn.ua and bloknot.ru
NSDC: Two Ukrainian soldiers killed, nine wounded in past 24 hours
(Interfax) -- Two Ukrainian soldiers have been killed in the east in the past 24 hours, the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) said.
"We have lost two servicemen killed and nine wounded over the past day," NSDC Information Analysis Center Speaker Andriy Lysenko said at a press conference in Kyiv on Wednesday.