U.S. urges Russia to free Ukrainian pilot:
Washington has called on Russia to immediately release Nadiya Savchenko, the Ukrainian pilot who was captured in eastern Ukraine and later handed over to Russia, where she is charged with killing two Russian journalists.
U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said on October 29 that Savchenko’s pretrial detention in Russia, which was extended this week by a Moscow court, was "an outrage" and violated Russia’s commitments under the Minsk agreements.
Psaki also said Washington was "deeply concerned about new criminal charges expected to be filed" against Savchenko.
Savchenko was captured by pro-Russian separatists on June 18 near the eastern Ukrainian village of Metalist before turning up in Russian custody in early July.
Under Russian court orders, she has been held since October 10 for "psychiatric evaluation" at the notorious Serbsky Institute, a facility behind a wave of diagnoses used to lock up dissidents during the Soviet era.
The Ukrainian president's party is claiming victory in Sunday's parliamentary vote:
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s bloc is claiming victory in the country's October 26 parliamentary elections.
Volodymyr Groysman, a leader of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc, was quoted as saying on October 29 the political group was leading with support from a majority of Ukrainians.
Vitaliy Kovalchuk, also from the bloc, said it will be "the basis" of a future coalition.
With 98 percent of the ballots counted on October 29, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk's People's Front party was leading with 22.2 percent, while Proshenko's bloc had 21.8 percent.
But Poroshenko's bloc fared better in first-past-the-post voting, and according to election commission data, was positioned to take 133 parliamentary seats compared to 81 seats for Yatsenyuk's People's Front.
Yatsenyuk earlier suggested he was likely to continue as Ukraine's prime minister after a new government is formed. (UNIAN, Reuters, and Interfax)
NATO reports "unusual" Russian flight activity:
NATO says that it tracked and intercepted four groups of Russian warplanes “conducting significant military maneuvers” in international airspace close to the borders of the European Union during the previous 24 hours.
NATO’s SHAPE military headquarters in Mons, Belgium, said, "These sizeable Russian flights represent an unusual level of air activity over European airspace."
It said the planes included strategic bombers, fighters, and tanker aircraft.
They were detected over the Baltic Sea, the North Sea, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Black Sea on October 28 and 29.
Russian bombers flew south all the way to international airspace west of Portugal and Spain.
Norwegian, British, Portuguese, German, Danish, and Turkish fighters were scrambled to intercept and identify the Russian planes.
Planes from the non-NATO nations of Finland and Sweden also responded.
Since Russia’s intervention in Ukraine, tensions between NATO and Russia have risen to the highest level since the Cold War. (AP and AFP)
This ends our live-blogging for October 29. Be sure to check back tomorrow for more of our continuing coverage.
Good morning. We'll get today's live blog rolling with this item from RFE/RL's news desk on gas talks in Brussels:
Russia and Ukraine are continuing EU-brokered talks in Brussels over their natural gas dispute.
The new round of talks, which started on October 29, is being hosted by EU Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger and involves Ukrainian and Russian energy ministers Yuriy Prodan and Aleksandr Novak, respectively.
The talks come after an inconclusive first round of talks on October 21.
An evening news conference scheduled for October 29 at which the EU had hoped to announce a deal after months of negotiation was canceled.
The European Commission said in a statement, "Negotiations are ongoing and likely to continue until late in the evening. In case of agreement, the press conference is envisaged to take place tomorrow morning [October 30] at 8:30 a.m."
Novak was later quoted by the Russian news agency TASS as saying that the talks would continue on October 30.
Oettinger said on October 29 that hurdles include bills that Ukraine has not paid for gas at higher prices demanded by Russia since the ouster of Ukraine's pro-Russian government earlier this year.
Russia is also demanding advance payment for new deliveries.
(AFP, AP, TASS)