"Voices" here seems to mean "proposes":
Moscow court upholds extension of pretrial detention for six of 24 Ukrainian sailors:
By RFE/RL
A court in Moscow has upheld a lower court's decision to extend pretrial detention for six of the 24 Ukrainian sailors detained by Russian forces along with their three naval vessels in November near the Kerch Strait, which links the Black Sea and Sea of Azov.
The sailors' lawyer, Nikolai Polozov, wrote on Facebook that the Moscow City Court announced the decision regarding Mykhaylo Vlasyuk, Serhiy Popov, Andriy Drach, Bohdan Holovash, Denys Hrytsenko, and Vyacheslav Zinchenko on August 16.
The six men, along with seven other sailors, have been ordered to remain in pretrial detention until October 24. The 11 remaining will be held until October 26.
Their detentions were extended in July as the sailors await trial on charges of "trespassing" in what Russia claims are its territorial waters.
If found guilty, the sailors face up to six years in prison.
Russia has held the Ukrainian sailors since its forces fired on, boarded, and seized their vessels off the coast of the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula on November 25.
Ukraine called the attack and capture of its sailors a violation of international maritime law.
The sailors have been held despite a May 25 ruling by the United Nations' Hamburg-based International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea that Russia must "immediately" release the sailors and Ukrainian ships.
Moscow has said the international maritime tribunal has no jurisdiction. It claims the Ukrainian ships illegally entered Russian territorial waters when they passed Crimea.
The UN tribunal's decisions are legally binding, but it has no power to enforce them.
The Kerch Strait is the sole passage from the Black Sea to the Sea of Azov. It runs between Russia and Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula that Russia seized in March 2014 after sending in troops and staging a referendum deemed illegitimate by Kyiv, the United States, and at least 100 countries.
The takeover of the peninsula, and subsequent Russian support for separatist militants who seized parts of eastern Ukraine at the start of a conflict that has killed some 13,000 people, came after pro-European protests pushed Moscow-friendly Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych from power in Kyiv.
Western leaders have demanded that Russia release the crew, and the incident has led to the imposition of additional sanctions on Russia.
In May, the United States sanctioned six Russians, including at least two Federal Security Service officers and about a half-dozen defense firms, in coordination with the European Union and Canada.
In a resolution on July 18, the newly elected European Parliament called on Russia "to release without further delay and unconditionally all illegally and arbitrarily detained Ukrainian citizens both in Russia and in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine."
The sailors were specifically mentioned in the nonbinding resolution.
In a March 12 report, the UN's Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights stated that Russia had breached international humanitarian law and called the 24 captive Ukrainians "prisoners of war." (w/TASS and RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service)
Here is today's map of the security situation in eastern Ukraine, according to the National Security and Defense Council (click to enlarge):
U.S. Special Envoy To Ukraine Says Russian Propaganda Hindering Peace Efforts
By RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. special peace envoy to Ukraine, Kurt Volker, says Russian propaganda is making it a challenge to solve the conflict in Crimea.
Speaking to RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service in Washington, Volker said Moscow's denial of responsibility for its role in the battle between separatists and Ukrainian forces in the eastern part of the country "makes it much harder for the international community to insist that Russia actually fulfill its obligations" under the Minsk peace agreements signed in 2014 and 2015 that were aimed at resolving the conflict.
"To the extent that Russia tries to confuse the issue and deny what they're doing, it complicates the effort to actually solve the problems," he said.
Russia annexed Crimea in March 2014 after Moscow-friendly Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was pushed from power by the pro-European Maidan protest movement the previous month.
Moscow has also fomented unrest and backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.
Some 13,000 people have been killed and 1.5 million more have been internally displaced in the smoldering conflict over the past five years, according to estimates by the United Nations.
Since the 2014 annexation, Russia has beefed up its military in Crimea with new ships, missiles and warplanes, as well as with infrastructure projects such as power plants and bridges.
Earlier this week, Ukraine's Foreign Ministry protested Russian President Vladimir Putin's latest visit to Crimea, calling it a "gross violation" of the country's sovereignty and territorial integrity.
"It is not a case of some indigenous separatist conflict. It is Russia actually doing this. I think getting that narrative right and understood [to the] wider public is essential if we're actually ever going to get the problem addressed the way it should be," Volker said.
That ends the live blogging for today. See you again tomorrow!