This ends our live-blogging for November 12. Please check back tomorrow for our continuing coverage of the conflict in Ukraine.
Good morning. We'll start the live blog today with a look ahead from RFE/RL's news desk to a NATO meeting in Croatia today:
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg is sponsoring a conference in Split, Croatia, on November 13 that brings together government officials and defense industry representatives for security talks.
NATO-Industry Forum 2014 is seen as the first major opportunity since the alliance's September 4-5 summit in Wales for NATO members and defense industry representatives to discuss the Ukraine crisis and the fight against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria.
A NATO statement about the event says recent developments "in Ukraine, the Middle East, and North Africa have put readiness at the top of NATO priorities."
NATO is expressing growing concern about violations of the Russian-brokered September 5 cease-fire agreement for eastern Ukraine.
On November 12, NATO’s top commander in Europe accused Russia of sending armored columns into eastern Ukraine to bolster pro-Russian separatists.
Croatia joined NATO in 2009.
As RFE/RL's news desk reports, Dmitry Medvedev has been discussing Western sanctions against his country:
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev says it is up to the West to improve severely strained relations with Moscow by scrapping sanctions imposed over the Ukraine crisis.
Medvedev spoke after an East Asia summit in Burma, also known as Myanmar, where he said he exchanged greetings with Barack Obama but had no substantive discussion with the U.S. president.
"I hope this period of...our relations with Europe and the United States will be overcome, but I emphasize, the ball is in their court" -- they must take the necessary decisions," Medvedev said.
"It's necessary to simply abandon sanctions... to return to normal, productive talks -- then everything will stabilize," he addd.
The United States and the European Union have imposed sanctions on Russia over its annexation of Crimea and support for pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.
(TASS, Interfax, Reuters)