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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

18:51 3.7.2018

19:34 3.7.2018

19:35 3.7.2018

19:38 3.7.2018

19:41 3.7.2018

21:09 3.7.2018

21:13 3.7.2018

22:03 3.7.2018

22:04 3.7.2018

This ends our live blogging for July 3. Be sure to check back tomorrow for our continuing coverage.

12:02 4.7.2018

Russian teens detained after protest supporting Sentsov:

By RFE/RL

A Russian teenage activist was among four people detained after she staged a protest outside the World Cup stadium in St. Petersburg wearing a bloodied shirt that she said was intended to draw attention to the country's problems, Reuters reported.

"We wanted to draw attention to the fact that no matter what you show foreigners, things on the inside aren't that good and pretty," 16-year-old Lika Petrovskaya told Reuters on July 3.

Russia has strived to put on its best face to host the world's most prestigious soccer tournament, with some participants expressing surprise at the leniency shown by the authorities during many of the festivities.

"No matter the pretty things that are shown, people in Russia are still suffering," Petrovskaya said.

OVD-Info, a human rights organization that monitors detentions, said that three other activists, including two minors, had been detained along with Petrovskaya outside the stadium on July 3.

The local branch of the Interior Ministry could not immediately be reached for comment.

Petrovskaya lay for a few minutes at the foot of a statue of Zabivaka, the wolf that serves as the tournament's mascot, outside the St. Petersburg venue where Sweden beat Switzerland 1-0 in their second-round match on July 3.

She said she was not detained the first time she lay down by the statue, despite the presence of security officers, and voluntarily stepped away when tourists asked her to move so they could take a picture. But she said she was detained by police when she returned for a second attempt.

Petrovskaya said one the issues she was protesting was the imprisonment of Ukrainian filmmaker Oleh Sentsov, who is being held in a Siberian jail where he has been on a hunger strike for 40 days.

Sentsov was sentenced to 20 years in a maximum-security prison in 2015 after being found guilty of setting fire to two offices in Crimea after Moscow annexed the territory from Ukraine.

A native of Crimea, Sentsov and human rights groups say the charges were politically motivated.

The protest in St. Petersburg wasn't the first during the games. Russian activists last week held a covert protest on a central Moscow street popular with World Cup fans to call on the Kremlin to release Sentsov.

And opposition parties during the games staged protests around the country against the Kremlin's plan to raise the retirement age.

Meanwhile, Moscow police said on July 3 that they had detained a person who vandalized a statue of a renowned Soviet soccer player outside the Spartak stadium where England was playing Colombia in a match.

The word "England" was painted in red on the chest of a statue of Fyodor Cherenkov, a former Soviet national team player and Spartak Moscow midfielder who died in 2014, according to pictures posted on social media during the match.

Police said in a statement they "had identified and detained" the person who vandalized the statue, which is located near the stadium's main entrance. The police statement did not disclose the vandal's identity, or say whether he or she was a British national.

England beat Colombia 4-3 on penalty kicks and will face Sweden in the quarterfinals in Samara on July 7. (w/AP and Reuters)

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