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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

15:27 28.5.2018

15:02 28.5.2018

Here is today's map of the security situation in eastern Ukraine, according to the National Security and Defense Council (click to enlarge):

15:00 28.5.2018

13:57 28.5.2018

Russia seeks 14-year term for Ukrainian journalist accused of spying:

By RFE/RL's Russian and Ukrainian services

Russian prosecutors are seeking a 14-year prison term for Ukrainian journalist Roman Sushchenko, who is on trial in Moscow on espionage charges in a case viewed by rights activists as politically motivated.

"The prosecution asked 14 years [in prison] for Roman Sushchenko," his lawyer, Mark Feigin wrote on Twitter on May 28, saying in a separate tweet that the Moscow City Court will announce its verdict in the case on June 4.

Russia's TASS news agency quoted a source at Sushchenko's closed-door trial at the Moscow City Court as saying that the prosecutor asked for 14 years of imprisonment for the reporter in a maximum-security correctional facility.

Sushchenko, a Paris-based correspondent for the Ukrinform news agency, was detained in Moscow in 2016 on suspicion of collecting classified information.

He pleaded not guilty at the start of his trial in March.

Kyiv and rights activists say Russia has jailed several Ukrainians on trumped-up, politically motivated charges since Moscow seized Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in March 2014 and threw its support behind armed separatists in eastern Ukraine.

Feigin told the 112 Ukraine TV channel he did not rule out the possibility of Moscow wanting to exchange Sushchenko for the head of RIA Novosti's branch in Ukraine, Kirill Vyshinsky, who is accused by Ukrainian authorities of high treason.

That case has drawn harsh criticism from Moscow and expressions of concern from media watchdogs. (w/TASS)

13:46 28.5.2018

13:44 28.5.2018

13:41 28.5.2018

13:34 28.5.2018

Background: Ukrainian Journalist Pleads Not Guilty At Russian Espionage Trial

13:32 28.5.2018

13:31 28.5.2018

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