A priest stands in front of a hospital destroyed after shelling between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian separatists in the eastern city of Donetsk, Ukraine, on January 19.

Live Blog: Ukraine In Crisis (Archive)

January 20, 2015 05:05 CET

Final Summary For January 20

-- A military spokesman says Ukrainian soldiers on January 20 came under attack from Russian regular forces in the north of the conflict zone in eastern Ukraine.

-- Germany's foreign minister says he and his counterparts from Ukraine, Russia, and France will meet on January 21 in Berlin in a bid to de-escalate the conflict in Ukraine.

-- The chief of Russian gas giant Gazprom says Ukraine's discount "winter price" for natural gas will end on April 1. Gazprom CEO Aleksei Miller said in a meeting with Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev that the price for Kyiv would be set in accordance with a long-standing contract, one Kyiv has long sought to change.

-- Russia says a European Union decision to keep sanctions against Russia in place shows the EU is not ready to change an "unfriendly course" toward Moscow. The EU's decision "only confirms the fact that the EU is still not ready to alter its unfriendly course or to give an objective assessment of the Kyiv authorities' actions," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

-- A Georgian man fighting on the Ukrainian side in the conflict in Ukraine has been killed in combat near the Donetsk airport, according to relatives. Media reports in Georgia quote members of Tamaz Sukhiashvili's family as saying he was killed in a battle near the bitterly contested airport on January 17.

-- The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has expressed deep concern over what it says is the "escalation" of violence between government forces and pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine over the past two weeks. In a statement, the ICRC said the fighting in and around the city of Donetsk was killing civilians and "preventing" its team from carrying out its humanitarian work.

-- An explosion near a courthouse in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv has wounded 14 people, four of them seriously.

-- Russia says Kyiv is trying to solve the crisis in eastern Ukraine through military force and that could lead to "irreversible consequences for Ukrainian statehood." Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin spoke to Interfax news agency as Kyiv and Moscow accused each other of ignoring appeals for a cease-fire to be respected.

*NOTE: Times are stated according to local time in Kyiv

12:18 26.12.2014

Our news desk has issued this item on an important development in Minsk:

Officials in Belarus say plans for a key round of peace talks between Ukraine and pro-Russian rebels have been canceled.

A round of negotiations between representatives of Ukraine, Russia, pro-Russian rebels and the OSCE had been tentatively scheduled to be held on December 26 in Minsk.

Kyiv had hoped the meeting would lead to the signing of a final peace deal on ending fighting in eastern Ukraine.

A previous round of talks on December 24, however, ended with little progress beyond an agreement on exchanging prisoners of war.

Ukraine's security service says Kyiv is set to swap 225 rebels for 125 Ukrainian servicemen.

A spokesman for the rebels said the swap would take place by December 30.

Markiyan Lubkyvsky, a spokesman for Ukraine's SBU state security service, refused to confirm the date, saying only that the swap would take place "soon."

(Reuters, AP, and AFP)

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11:13 26.12.2014

Good morning. We'll start the live blog today with this update RFE/RL's news desk:

Kyiv and pro-Russian separatists have reached an agreement on the exchange of all prisoners held by the two sides.

Talks aimed at ensuring a stable cease-fire between Ukrainian government forces and the rebels in eastern Ukraine were held in the Belarusian capital, Minsk, on December 24.

They brought together representatives of Ukraine, Russia, the separatists, and international monitors.

Markiyan Lubkivsky, an adviser to the Ukrainian Security Service, said on December 25 that a deal on the terms of a prisoner swap involving 150 Ukrainian soldiers and 225 rebel fighters was the only tangible achievement of the talks.

The information was confirmed by two rebel leaders in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, Aleksandr Zakharchenko and Igor Plotnitsky.

A second round of peace talks had been tentatively set for today (December 26), but it remained unclear if that would take place.

(Interfax, TASS, AFP)

21:17 25.12.2014

We are now closing our live blog for today. Until we start up again tomorrow morning, you can keep abreast of all our Ukraine coverage here.

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Live Blog: Ukraine In Crisis (Archive)