That concludes our live-blogging of the Ukraine crisis for May 25, 2019. Check back here tomorrow for more of our continuing coverage.
Here is today's map of the security situation in eastern Ukraine, according to the National Security and Defense Council (CLICK TO ENLARGE):
UN Maritime Tribunal Rules Russia Must 'Immediately' Release Ukrainian Sailors, Ships
By RFE/RL
A UN maritime tribunal has ruled that Russia must “immediately” release 24 Ukrainian sailors and three Ukrainian naval vessels captured by Russia in November.
The Hamburg-based International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea delivered its ruling on May 25 on the case Ukraine brought against Russia.
Russia seized the ships in November near the Kerch Strait bridge, which connects the Russian mainland to the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea.
Relations between Russia and Ukraine have been tense since Moscow annexed Crimea in March 2014 and began providing military, political, and economic support to separatist formations waging a war against Kyiv in parts of eastern Ukraine.
Tribunal President Jin-Hyun Paik said that judges decided Russia must "immediately" return the three ships to Ukraine's custody and release the sailors and allow them to return to Ukraine.
Reacting to the ruling, the Russian Foreign Ministry said the UN Convention on Law of the Sea could not be applied to what it termed the “dispute about the Kerch Strait incident,” in a statement cited by Interfax.
Nineteen of the 20 judges voted in favor of the ruling, with only the Russian voting against.
Correspondents say the ruling is unlikely to definitively end the question of allowing Ukrainian ships full access to the Sea of Azov, which Russia has been restricting since a bridge across the Kerch Strait was completed.
But Ukraine is hoping a victory will provide legal weight in its fight against Russia, which has boycotted the proceedings, saying the court has no jurisdiction.
Ukraine has denied Russia's charge that the Ukrainian ships had entered Russian territorial waters illegally.
The European Union, NATO, and other international bodies have called on Moscow to release the ships and the detained sailors.
With reporting by AFP, AP, and Interfax
BREAKING! UN maritime tribunal rules that Russia must release seized Ukrainian naval vessels, free 24 detained sailors.
More to follow.
In Ukraine, Poroshenko's Bloc Rebrands Itself Ahead Of Parliamentary Elections
By Current Time
The political party of former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has changed its name in a bid to rebrand itself ahead of key parliamentary elections.
The Petro Poroshenko Bloc was renamed to European Solidarity at a party congress on May 24.
“The key to unity and victory is a renewed party and renewed leadership,” Poroshenko told the gathering in Kyiv.
When Ukraine will hold its next parliamentary elections is unclear.
The new Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy announced at his inauguration on May 20 that he would dissolve parliament and call snap elections in July.
He has also called for that election to be held based entirely on voting for parties, rather than single candidates, arguing that the current system in which some seats are filled in contests between individual candidates favors corruption.
But at an emergency session of the Verkhovna Rada on May 22, only 92 lawmakers voted to discuss that proposal -- far short of the majority, 226 votes, needed to put it on the agenda.
The next parliamentary elections had been set for late October.
As he starts his term, early elections are a chance for Zelenskiy to strengthen his position and sideline allies of Poroshenko.
Zelenskiy, 41, defeated Poroshenko by a wide margin in a presidential runoff vote on April 21. Ukrainians largely faulted Poroshenko for failing to tackle corruption and lower living standards.