Good morning. We'll start the live blog this morning with some footage that appears to have been taken overnight in Kharkiv. With the Ukrainian parliament passing a bill banning Soviet-era symbols on April 9, it seems that some youths took the law into their own hands and destroyed three monuments in the eastern city. From the looks of things, it appears that the authorities didn't do too much to interfere either (see 2:05 mins):
We are now closing the live blog for today. Until we resume again tomorrow, you can follow our ongoing Ukraine news coverage here.
And now some currency news, which is also of peripheral interest to Ukraine:
The Russian ruble rose in trading on April 10, reaching a high point for 2015.
The Russian currency traded as high as 50.27 to the dollar in the early afternoon before giving up some of its gains.
Since early February, the value of the ruble has increased around 30 percent after reaching a low of around 70 rubles to the dollar. This follows the currency's collapse in 2014, when the ruble lost 40 percent of its value.
Analysts say the ruble's recovery can be attributed to a lull in fighting in Ukraine plus high Russian interest rates, which makes investments in Russian bonds relatively more attractive.
They point out, however, that with world oil prices hovering near lows for the year, the higher ruble actually makes it harder for Russia to balance its domestic budget.
Dollar-denominated oil revenue, they say, translates into fewer rubles once it's converted and brought back into the country.
(Bloomberg, AFP)
An item from our news desk on Moscow's reaction to Kyiv's decision to ban the use of Soviet-era symbols. Perhaps not surprisingly they sound a bit miffed:
Russia's Foreign Ministry has responded angrily to legislation passed in Ukraine on April 9 that bans the use of Soviet-era symbols and could require the removal or demolition of all monuments from Ukraine's Soviet past.
In a statement on April 10, Russia's Foreign Ministry said the attempts of Ukrainian authorities to erase memories of the country's past would lead to large problems in Ukrainian society.
The Russian Foreign Ministry statement criticized Ukraine's ban of "propaganda of the totalitarian communist and Nazi regimes," saying Kyiv was using "totalitarian methods" to liquidate parties and organizations and attack "freedom of the press, opinion, or conscience."
The statement said Russia "continues to watch with alarm" the efforts of Ukrainian authorities to wipe out the "heroic past of the people of Ukraine."
Officials in Kyiv see their history in the 20th century differently, viewing the period between 1939 and 1945 are a fight against Nazi Germany and Soviet authorities.
(TASS, Interfax, Reuters)