Barring any major developments, that ends the live blogging for today.
Dutch MH17 investigators shift focus to culprits:
The Netherlands says that, with nearly all of the victims of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 identified, efforts has shifted to finding those responsible for shooting the plane down over Ukraine last year.
Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders said on April 16, "Now that we're very far with repatriation [of the victims' remains], investigation and prosecution are becoming more central."
Meanwhile, Dutch experts said they recovered more body parts and personal belongings from the crash site after searching a location previously considered unsafe because of fighting between pro-Russian separatists and government forces.
The passenger jet was shot down on July 17, killing all 298 people on board, most of them Dutch.
Last month, Dutch media reported that a metal fragment from the crash site matches a Russian-made rocket.
Russia has suggested that the airliner was downed by the Ukrainian military. (Reuters, AFP, dpa)
U.S. paratroopers to train national guard forces:
About 300 U.S. paratroopers arrived in Ukraine this week to train troops of the Ukrainian National Guard, which is fighting Russian-backed separatists in the east of the country.
They are training 900 members of a Ukrainian reservist force that was called up in 2014 to bring volunteers and pro-government militia under government control.
The U.S. trainers are from the U.S. Army's 173rd Airborne Brigade, a unit based in Italy that serves as the U.S. European Command's conventional airborne strategic-response force for Europe.
"We will be conducting classes on war-fighting functions, as well as training to sustain and increase the professionalism and proficiency of military staffs," Major Jose Mendez, a brigade operations officer, said in a statement on April 16.
Troops from the same unit were deployed to Poland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania in 2014 to train forces there and alleviate concerns raised by those countries over Russia's military intervention in Ukraine.
Fighting between the pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian troops in the east has killed more than 6,000 people during the past year and continues despite a February cease-fire agreement. (w/ AFP, TASS)
Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, has criticized the arrival of 300 U.S. paratroopers in Ukraine to train troops from the National Guard, saying their presence could destabilize the situation in the conflict-torn country.