Live Blog: Ukraine In Crisis (Archive)

Russia's Black Sea Fleet says the process of handing over Ukrainian warships to Ukraine has started.

The fleet's press service said on April 11 the "Priluki" missile boat was towed from the Sevastopol dock at Karantinnaya to neutral waters so Ukraine could take possession of it.

Russia's ITAR-TASS news agency cited a source in the Black Sea Fleet as saying Ukraine would need to get tugboats to tow the vessel to a port at Odesa since the vessel is in such poor condition that it is unable to move under its own power.

The same source said the "Fastov" tanker was also given over to Ukraine.

Russia said it would hand back some 70 of the Ukrainian Navy's vessels, most of which, Russian officials claim, are old, obsolete, and in poor condition.

"I’m accused of producing propaganda, of being a propagandist. The word “propaganda” in Greek means dissemination of information, ideas and concepts. For some reason the West is using this word as an insult.

They are calling me the country’s chief propagandist, which indicates either madness or ignorance on their part.

The fact is that all Western news agencies impose a point of view. Take Reuters or the Associated Press. Both are propaganda agencies – they shape the dominant narrative and tell their audiences what and how to think.

Gay culture certainly has the right to exist in Russia, and it does, de facto. Yet, it is a minority culture, and this is all it will ever be. A minority culture should not be imposed on the majority, especially not through aggressive propaganda. I do not believe this unconventional sexual orientation is an illness. I am not even saying it is outside physiological norms. But it is certainly outside accepted social practices, and for me this is a strongly held belief.

Different countries require different quarantine periods since the last homosexual encounter. But homosexuals may have upwards of 1,500 partners throughout their lives, so 500 would not surprise anyone, by comparison. This data comes from respected US and European studies. Homosexuals have a different lifestyle, a different pace. So they are de facto banned from donating. In Russia, the state is responsible for ensuring that HIV is not transmitted through donor blood. The risk is as high as dying in a plane crash.

We have won. We are proud of it. People who deprive themselves of this heroic past live in negativity. They turn into a nation of losers. They only remember the famine and the fact that their land was once occupied."

Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk has said in Donetsk that the country's regions should have more powers and be allowed to hold referendums on important issues.

Yatsenyuk met in Donetsk with regional leaders today but not with protesters who are occupying a regional administration building in central Donetsk and have declared the formation of a sovereign "Donetsk People's Republic."

Yatsenyuk called on the separatists -- who have built large barricades -- to vacate the building and surrender their weapons.

He said he opposes the use of force in recovering the building, as was done in Kharkiv earlier this week in flushing out separatists from a government facility in that eastern Ukrainian city.

Protesters stormed several government buildings in Kharkiv, Donetsk, and Luhansk on April 6.

Only the building in Kharkiv has been cleared of separatists.

Yatsenyuk also called for regional government leaders in Ukraine to be elected instead of being appointed by the national government in Kyiv.

Ukraine's influential oligarch Rinat Akhmetov was one of those who met with Yatsenyuk in Donetsk.

In his view, the ongoing crisis in the eastern Ukrainian city can only be solved via dialogue.

Akhmetov, a billionaire Donetsk native of Tatar origin, told Yatsenyuk that he would always support the Donetsk region as a part of Ukraine.

But he said he also supports the protesters, who demand more regional rights and state-language status for Russian.