Correspondent @CoalsonR examines the changing lens through which Ukraine's politics might be viewed. Here's a sample:
Parties and movements of those who supported Yanukovych's once-powerful Party of Regions are now struggling for mere political survival.
...[I]t is not that ethnic Russians in Ukraine no longer identify or sympathize with Russia. Rather...they are rejecting Vladimir Putin.
Read the rest here:
End Of The Orange-Blue Divide: Ukraine Vote May Produce New Political Landscape
The latest from the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council:
From Reuters:
Russia still has some troops in eastern Ukraine and retains a very capable force on the border despite a partial withdrawal, NATO's top military commander said on Friday.
"We've seen a pretty good withdrawal of the Russian forces from inside Ukraine but, make no mistake, there remain Russian forces inside eastern Ukraine," U.S. Air Force General Philip Breedlove told reporters at NATO's military headquarters near Mons in Belgium.
Some Russian troops stationed near the Ukraine border had left and some others appeared to be preparing to leave "but the force that remains and shows no indications of leaving is still a very, very capable force and remains a coercive capability to the nation of Ukraine," he said.
The United Nations says the conflict in Ukraine has forced more than 800,000 people from their homes.
Around 95 percent of displaced people come from eastern Ukraine, where government troops have been battling pro-Russian separatists.
UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, told a briefing in Geneva that an estimated 430,000 people were currently displaced within Ukraine -- 170,000 more than at the start of September.
It said at least 387,000 other people have asked for refugee status, temporary asylum, or other forms of residency permits in Russia.
Another 6,600 have applied for asylum in the European Union and 581 in Belarus.
The agency said it was "racing to help some of the most vulnerable displaced people" as winter approaches.
It also said the number of displaced people is expected to rise further due to ongoing fighting in eastern Ukraine.
Statements by Rear Admiral Anders Grenstad of the Royal Swedish Navy while announcing the conclusion of efforts to identify "foreign underwater activity" in the Stockholm Archipelago:
"I'm here to tell you that the marine intelligence operation, that has taken place in the Stockholm Archipelago for seven days, is now mainly over. This means that the bulk of ships and amphibious forces have returned to their port and resumed normal preparedness. Smaller units carrying out special tasks remain in the area."
"The [Swedish] Armed Forces' assessment is that most probably foreign underwater activity has been conducted in Stockholm's inner archipelago. Our [search] operation has not produced a confirmation of foreign underwater activity; in particular the type [of the vessel], country of origin, and form of the operation conducted by a foreign power has not been identified with an absolute certainty. We believe today that those [units] or the unit, which we have been able to follow through our own observations and those of the public, have now abandoned the area. What we have been able to rule out with certainty is that it was a conventional submarine."