Hot off the presses from RFE/RL's Kyiv correspondent Christopher Miller:
Manafort Worked With Russian-Ukrainian On Peace Plan Before -- And Long After -- Criminal Charges
KYIV -- Konstantin Kilimnik, the alleged Russian intelligence operative who helped run Paul Manafort's operations in Kyiv for roughly a decade, boasted of the duo's closeness to RFE/RL in a 2017 interview. "The only guy who Manafort can conceivably talk to in Ukraine is basically me," he said.
Kilimnik added that, while Manafort was working as Donald Trump's campaign chairman in 2016, he was also "briefing [Manafort] on Ukraine."
On January 15, Special Counsel Robert Mueller's office suggested in a court filing that the two men spoke a lot, before and long after Manafort was criminally charged, and specifically about an initiative to bring peace to Ukraine that was likely very favorable to the Kremlin.
If confirmed, that would indicate that the pair were doing so while Manafort was working for Trump's campaign and Russia was allegedly interfering in the 2016 election to help his candidate win.
Read more here.
We are now closing the live blog for today, but we'll be back again tomorrow morning to follow all the latest developments. Until then, you can keep up with all our other Ukraine coverage here.
Ukraine Detains 'Pro-Separatist' Journalist After Deportation From Russia
By RFE/RL
Authorities in Ukraine say they have detained a journalist accused of undermining the country’s territorial integrity.
The Security Service (SBU) said on January 17 that Ukrainian journalist Olena Boyko (aka Olena Vishchur), who was deported from Russia earlier this month, has distributed “anti-Ukrainian material” on the Internet since 2014, when Moscow illegally annexed Ukraine's Crimea region.
Russia is also backing separatists in Ukraine's eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk in a conflict that has killed more than 10,300 people since April 2014.
In its statement, the SBU said Boyko moved to territory held by the separatists in August before heading to Russia, where it said she publicly called for a change of “Ukraine's borders or its state structure."
In December, Boyko was fined by a court in Moscow on charges of violating Russia’s migration regulations and ordered deported.
Before the ruling, Boyko took part in televised talk shows in which she harshly criticized Ukrainian authorities and expressed support for the separatists in eastern Ukraine.
Her lawyer in Russia, Galina Perfilyeva, has said her client was sent back to Ukraine on January 16.
She said Boyko had asked for political asylum in Russia several times but her requests were all rejected.