This ends our live-blogging for September 10. Be sure to check back tomorrow for more of our continuing coverage.
Good morning. We'll start the live blog today with the latest Ukraine update from our news desk:
Russian President Vladimir Putin says he lit a candle in church to honor those wounded fighting government troops in Ukraine.
Speaking outside a Moscow church late last night, Putin used the politically charged term "Novorossia" to refer to southeastern Ukrainian regions at the center of a five-month conflict that has been largely stilled by a cease-fire.
Putin said he had lit a candle for "those who have been injured and those who gave their lives defending people in Novorossia."
Kyiv and NATO say Russia has sent thousands of soldiers to eastern Ukraine, where separatists hold two provincial capitals and rebel gains that preceded the signing of the cease-fire deal on September 5.
Russia denies involvement, despite evidence including funerals of soldiers believed to have died in Ukraine.
Novorossia is a tsarist-era name for a broad strip of land encompassing much of eastern and southern Ukraine.
Putin's use of the term has raised concerns that the Kremlin may have designs on this territory.
(AFP, ITAR-TASS, Interfax)
More than 90% of Russians didn't take part in any political or civic activity over the last 2 years, new study finds http://t.co/Uw4u1MTSxW
— Alec Luhn (@ASLuhn) September 11, 2014
Pro-Russian militia in Ukraine as highland warriors - some tongue-in-cheek montages supporting Scottish independence. pic.twitter.com/xSxwLp1ml9
— Tom Parfitt (@parfitt_tom) September 11, 2014
It seems that Moscow is upping the ante in terms of its combat readiness (from RFE/RL's news desk):
President Vladimir Putin has ordered military forces in Russia's Far East to carry out a major exercise to test their combat readiness.
Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu told a meeting of the armed forces' leadership that troops in Russia's Eastern Military District were put on full combat alert today.
The Eastern Military District encompasses territories bordering China and Mongolia and, at Sea, Japan.
The drills began in the first day of a summit in Tajikistan of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a security-oriented grouping comprising China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
Analysts have seen geopolitical signals in some of the combat-readiness drills Putin has ordered over the past year, including one held in central Russia in June as the conflict in Ukraine was raging.
( ITAR-TASS, Reuters, AP)
The pro-Kremlin blogosphere has been making much of this speech by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in Mariupol, with many claiming he was drunk. What do you think?
Видео кадры выступления пьяного Порошенко в Мариуполе опубликованы на YouTube http://t.co/2swPCqkBfv
— Konstantin McRykov (@rykov) September 11, 2014
Winter is coming... (from RFE/RL's news desk)
Germany has joined Poland in reporting reductions in deliveries of Russian natural gas amid heightened tensions between Moscow and the European Union over the Ukraine crisis.
German energy company E.ON said it registered small reductions in deliveries of natural gas, after Poland said that Russian natural gas supplies had dropped almost a quarter this week.
Gazprom is denying any cuts.
Ukraine has accused Russia of reducing gas supplies to Europe in order to disrupt "reverse flow" supplies from European countries to Ukraine.
Kyiv depends on the "reverse flows" for its gas, as Gazprom has already halted supplies meant for consumers in Ukraine in a politically charged pricing dispute.
A senior member of Russia's lower parliament house, Vladimir Gutenyov, today urged Gazprom to consider reducing or halting gas supplies to European countries which allow "reverse flows" to Ukraine.
(Reuters, AP, ITAR-TASS)