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A portrait of slain separatist leader Aleksandr Zakharchenko hangs outside the Donetsk Opera and Ballet Theatre on September 2.
A portrait of slain separatist leader Aleksandr Zakharchenko hangs outside the Donetsk Opera and Ballet Theatre on September 2.

Live Blog: Ukraine In Crisis (Archive)

-- EDITOR'S NOTE: We have started a new Ukraine Live Blog as of September 3, 2018. You can find it here.

-- Tens of thousands of people gathered on September 2 in the separatist stronghold of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine to mourn a top rebel leader who was recently killed in a bomb attack.

-- Prominent Ukrainian historian Mykola Shityuk has been found dead in his home city of Mykolaiv, police said on September 2.​

-- Ukraine says it has imprisoned the man it accused of being recruited by Russia’s secret services to organize a murder plot against self-exiled Russian reporter and Kremlin critic Arkady Babchenko.

-- Ukraine and Russia are trading blame for the killing of a top separatist leader in eastern Ukraine.

-- Aleksandr Zakharchenko, the head of the head of the breakaway separatist entity known as the Donetsk People’s Republic, was killed in an explosion at a cafe in Donetsk on August 31.

-- The United States is ready to widen arms supplies to Ukraine to help build up the country's naval and air defense forces in the face of continuing Russian support for eastern separatists, the U.S. special envoy for Ukraine told The Guardian.

-- The spiritual head of the worldwide Orthodox Church in Istanbul has hosted Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill for talks on Ukraine's bid to split from the Russian church, a move strongly opposed by Moscow.

*Time stamps on the blog refer to local time in Ukraine

23:32 12.2.2018

23:31 12.2.2018

Saakashvili speaks briefly in Warsaw:

23:30 12.2.2018

Ukraine's Economy Ministry says the shadow economy has been reduced but still makes up about one-third of GDP:

23:29 12.2.2018

An interview with Foreign Affairs Ministry adviser on the possibility of peacekeepers being sent to the Donbas:

23:27 12.2.2018

23:27 12.2.2018

A report says 20,000 peacekeepers would be needed in the Donbas:

23:26 12.2.2018

Talks held between Ukrainian officials and the IMF:

23:25 12.2.2018

19:08 12.2.2018

18:41 12.2.2018

RFE/RL's Belarus Service reports on the start of an espionage trial against Ukrainian journalist Pavlo Sharoyko:

MINSK -- The Supreme Court of Belarus says it has started the trial of a Ukrainian journalist charged with espionage.

Court spokeswoman Yulia Lyaskova told RFE/RL on February 12 that the trial of Pavlo Sharoyko is being held behind closed doors.

"We cannot comment when exactly the trial started and who is the judge as the trial is closed for outsiders," Lyaskova said.

Lyaskova’s comment came hours after Sharoyko's lawyer, Larysa Bykava (eds: a woman), said that her client had gone on trial.

Sharoyko was detained in Belarus in November.

Ukraine and Belarus expelled each other's diplomats after Sharoyko's arrest.

Sharoyko's colleagues said at the time that he had been working on stories related to the search for Pavlo Hryb, a 19-year-old Ukrainian citizen who disappeared in Belarus after being arrested and was later found to have been sent to Russia, where he was charged with terrorism-related offences.

Relations between Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine -- mostly Slavic former Soviet republics with deep historical and cultural ties -- have been strained since Moscow seized control of Ukraine's Crimea region and threw its support behind armed separatists in eastern Ukraine in 2014.

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