ICYMI:
The New Zealand connection:
We are now closing the live blog for today, but before we go we'll point you in the direction of a new feature by RFE/RL's Carl Schreck and Olena Removska. (And don't forget that, while we're away, you can keep up with all our ongoing Ukraine coverage here.)
Snatched In Plain Sight: No Justice In Crimean Tatar's Slaying Five Years After Russian Annexation
Two of the men who seized and frog-marched Reshat Ametov into the backseat of a waiting car wore green military fatigues. The third, wearing black civilian clothes, closed the rear door behind the captive and watched the dark-colored hatchback speed away.
The abduction unfolded in early March 2014 in front of the Council of Ministers building in the capital of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula, where Russian troops in uniforms without insignia had begun seizing key government buildings days earlier.
Video of the incident shows what are believed to be the last known images of Ametov, a 39-year-old Crimean Tatar who had come to the central square in Simferopol that day to protest Russia's invasion, while he was still alive.
Nearly two weeks later, the father of three's body was discovered in a forest some 60 kilometers to the east. A lawyer for the Crimean Tatars' self-governing body, the Mejlis, went to the local prosecutor's office shortly thereafter and said the corpse showed "clear signs of torture." The cause of death, according to Ametov’s brother, was a stab wound to the eye.
Russian authorities, whose control of Crimea is rejected as illegitimate by the Mejlis and 100 UN members, pledged a thorough investigation into the killing of Ametov, widely seen in Ukraine and among Crimean Tatars as an early martyr to the cause of opposing Russia's takeover.
Read more here.