Ukraine's prime minister vows Crimea will be returned:
Ukraine's prime minister has suggested that Kyiv is unlikely to see the return of Russian-annexed Crimea soon, but vowed the peninsula will be returned to Ukraine one day.
Arseniy Yatsenyuk told reporters on December 30 during an end-of-year press conference in Kyiv that if the current generation of Ukrainians does not get Crimea back under Kyiv's control, "then our children or grandchildren will."
Yatsenyuk said there is no "quick and easy answer" to the question of how Ukraine can get back the Black Sea region, which was annexed by Russia in March.
The Ukrainian prime minister also said bilateral trade between Ukraine and Russia dropped by 50 percent in 2014 and that, "very soon," Russia will no longer be Ukraine's top trade partner.
Yatsenyuk blamed Moscow for the decline in trade, saying it "has never observed and is not observing a single bilateral agreement, including in the economic field." (UNIAN, Interfax)
This ends our live-blogging for December 30. Be sure to check back tomorrow for our continuing coverage.
Merkel vows a united EU front on Ukraine:
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has pledged to maintain a strong and united European position against Russia over the crisis in Ukraine.
Merkel said in a December 30 early release of her New Year's address to Germans that Europe "cannot and will not accept the purported right of the strong who violate international law."
She says in her speech that Europe in 2014 had witnessed a nation's right to self-determination threatened.
Merkel, who has spoken frequently with Russian President Vladimir Putin since Moscow annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in March, said such a right is a foundation of the "European peaceful order."
She added that Europe wants security "together with Russia, not against Russia."
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko will meet with Putin, Merkel, and French President Francois Hollande on January 15 in Kazakhstan to discuss peace efforts between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian separatists. (AFP and "The Guardian")
Russia's TASS news agency reporting that talks to be held in Luhansk today:
A working group involving representatives of Ukraine's Luhansk and Donetsk self-proclaimed republics, Kiev authorities and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) officials will meet in Luhansk on December 31, Luhansk republic plenipotentiary representative at the Contact Group talks Vladislav Deinego told TASS.
“Law enforcers will meet in Luhansk on Wednesday,” he said.
Asked whether any cardinal agreements may be reached at this meeting he said that“everything depends on the result.
On Tuesday, Assistant Commander of Luhansk militia corps Vitaly Kiselev said negotiators plan to talk “military issues raised earlier at the Contact Group meeting over crisis settlement in [highly volatile Ukrainian industrial area] Donbass in [Belarusian capital] the city of Minsk.”
The similar meeting was held on Monday, December 29, in another embattled east Ukrainian city of Donetsk. Talks raised three issues, including continuation of Minsk peace negotiations, ceasefire and pullback of heavy weaponry from the disengagement line, the press service of the Donetsk Defense Ministry reported then. Meanwhile, negotiating parties agreed on a next stage of captive swap.
As we noted last night, Oliver Stone has decided the Maidan was a CIA plot:
U.S. filmmaker Oliver Stone, who is working on a documentary film about recent events in Ukraine, says he believes the February 20 shootings in Kyiv that left dozens dead and injured were carried out by "foreign elements" and the incident had "CIA fingerprints on it."
Stone made the comments in a December 30 Facebook post, saying he just returned from Moscow where he interviewed former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.
Stone did not say why "it seems clear" that the shooters were "outside third-party agitators," but added that details would be included in his film.
Stone also asserted that "well-armed, neo-Nazi radicals forced Yanukovych to flee the country with repeated assassination attempts" and compared the situation to a 2002 attempted coup against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
Yanukovych fled to Russia days after the shootings, following months of protests over his decision to scrap plans for a landmark deal with the EU and bolster ties with Moscow.
Stone said that "the West has maintained the dominant narrative of 'Russia in Crimea' whereas the true narrative is 'USA in Ukraine.'" He called it "a dirty story through and through."
Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in March, in a move condemned as illegal by Kyiv and the West.