And now for another sanctions update (from RFE/RL's news desk):
Russia says it has banned meat imports from Montenegro in an effort to close loopholes on a ban against food products from the European Union.
Russia’s agricultural watchdog Rosselkhoznadzor made the announcement today.
The Interfax news agency quoted Rosselkhoznadzor Director Sergei Dankvert as saying that Montenegro may have allowed shipments of EU meat to Russia with fake certificates from the former Yugoslav republic.
Dankvert added that Albania and Macedonia would face similar bans if the two countries do not dispel doubts about their certificates by November 24.
Montenegro mainly supplied pork and pork products to Russia.
But Dankvert's assistant, Alexei Alekseyenko, said Montenegro "was not a major player on the market of imported meat products," adding that the ban "will not do harm to the range of imported products" from the country
(TASS, dpa)
Here are some more details on Vladimir Putin's comments today in which he said the United States was trying to "subjugate" Russia:
President Vladimir Putin has said he does not believe the United States wants to humiliate Russia but does want Russia to be under Washington's influence.
Putin was responding to a question at the Action Forum sponsored by the All-Russia Popular Front political movement, a core Kremlin support group, on November 18.
He said the United States does not "want to humiliate us, but they want to bring us into subjugation, they want to resolve their problems at our expense, and to get us under their influence."
Putin added, "Nobody has ever been able to do so in Russian history and nobody ever will."
(Interfax, Reuters)
Here's another brief item from RFE/RL's news desk on the German foreign minister's visit to Kyiv and Moscow:
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier flew from Kyiv to Moscow and met with his Russian counterpart during the evening of November 18.
Steinmeier and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov discussed the deteriorating situation in Ukraine.
Both reportedly agreed on the need to return to the so-called Minsk protocol, a dialogue that involves the warring factions in Ukraine, as well as Russia and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
Steinmeier said he did not "see reasons for optimism" that the Minsk protocol could achieve a breakthrough on the ground in eastern Ukraine where more than 4,000 people have been killed in fighting since March.
But he said "it would be a huge loss" to abandon the protocol at this time.
Steinmeier and Lavrov also called on Kyiv and the separatist leadership in Donetsk and Luhansk regions to start direct talks aiming at pulling their military forces back.
(Interfax, TASS, Reuters)