From RFE/RL's News Desk:
A Russian woman has been jailed on suspicion of treason after she called the Ukrainian Embassy with information about possible Russian troop movements.
Svetlana Davydova's husband and a defense lawyer said she was detained last week in the town of Vyazma, some 240 kilometers west of Moscow, and placed in pretrial detention at Lefortovo prison in the capital.
Lawyer Andrei Stebenev said the 36-year-old mother of seven "called where she was not supposed to call and said what she was not supposed to say."
Her husband, Anatoly Gorlov, said Davydova phoned the Ukrainian Embassy in Moscow last April and said that a military base near their home had emptied out, suggesting the soldiers may have been deployed to Ukraine.
Russia denies involvement in the conflict, which has killed more than 5,100 people in eastern Ukraine since April, despite what Kyiv and NATO say is incontrovertible evidence Moscow has sent troops and weapons to help separatists fighting government forces.
Gorlov said his wife had opposed the conflict since it began.
VIDEO: Ukrainian soldiers in the Luhansk region say they have come under heavy fire from pro-Russian separatists, who are reported to be gaining ground. In the town of Stanytsya Luhanska, thousands of residents have fled their homes as shells and tank fire hit residential areas. (By Levko Stek of RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service)
From RFE/RL's News Desk:
Ukraine says five of its soldiers have been killed and 29 wounded in fighting with pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine in the past 24 hours.
Military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said on January 29 that separatists targeted government positions with shells and rockets in more than 100 separate attacks.
The latest casualties followed claims by the rebels that they have nearly encircled government forces in the strategic town of Debaltseve, which straddles a road junction between the separatist provincial capitals of Donetsk and Luhansk.
EU foreign ministers meet in Brussels later on January 29 to discuss whether to extend current sanctions against Russia for its actions in Ukraine and whether to approve new punitive measures.
Diplomats told RFE/RL that Greek objections had blocked consensus at a preparatory meeting on January 28.
Ambassadors gathered again on January 29 before the foreign ministers' meeting to try to hammer out an agreement.
More from RFE/RL's News Desk on the issue of mobile military crematoriums allegedly being used by Russia in eastern Ukraine:
The head of the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) says Russia has deployed seven "mobile military crematoriums" in the eastern Donetsk region to burn the bodies of Russian soldiers killed in combat there.
SBU chief Valentyn Nalyvaychenko told Ukraine's Channel 5 TV on January 28 that the crematoriums are mounted on Kamaz trucks and said each is burning eight to 10 bodies per day.
He said Ukraine had "documented this information" but did not explain how.
Moscow denies sending troops to Ukraine to fight alongside separatists against government forces in a conflict that has killed more than 5,100 people since April, saying the only Russians fighting there are “volunteers.”
But relatives of some Russian soldiers say servicemen have been pressured to fight in Ukraine, and there are reports of bodies of Russian soldiers being repatriated for burial.
Ukrainian President President Poroshenko said on January 21 that there were 9,000 Russian soldiers in Ukraine.
More on those Gorbachev comments from RFE/RL's News Desk:
Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev says he fears the confrontation between Russia and the West over Ukraine could escalate into armed conflict.
The Russian news agency Interfax quoted Gorbachev as saying that the United States has "dragged us into a new Cold War."
"Unfortunately, I cannot say confidently that the Cold War will not lead to a hot one," Gorbachev was quoted as saying.
Gorbachev criticized the United States over the sanctions they have imposed on Russia, saying, "Have they lost their minds entirely?"
The sanctions were imposed in response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea in March and its support for separatists fighting Ukrainian government forces in a conflict that has killed more than 5,100 people since April.
Here is today's situation map of eastern Ukraine by the National Security and Defense Council (click to enlarge):
