An Interfax report says Gennady Tsypkalov, the former self-proclaimed "chairman of the Council of Ministers" in the Russia-backed part of Ukraine's Luhansk region, has committed suicide. Separatist representative Sergei Rakhno said on September 24 that Tsypkalov killed himself while in detention by the separatists as part of an investigation for his involvement of a coup attempt. Rakhno said Tsypkalov hanged himself after "obviously having realized the depth of his criminal actions."
Relatives of flight MH17 victims are demanding that the European Commission do more to investigate the downing of the Malaysia Airlines plane that left 298 people dead when a missile brought the plane down as it flew over the Donbas region in 2014.
In a letter to EU foreign policy chief Frederica Mogherini, the relatives said "298 people were brutally killed, and the investigations were clearly hindered."
A memorial to Romany victims of Nazism has been unveiled in Kyiv:
Ukrainian PM Volodymyr Hroysman and the country's agriculture minister have refuted a report by ukraina.ru that the government is going to sell land to European and U.S. companies or that it will raise the retirement age.
It's been a very slow day as far as Ukraine news goes. So that concludes our live-blogging of the Ukraine crisis for Friday, September 23, 2016. Check back here tomorrow for more of our continuing coverage. Thanks for reading and take care.
British Reporter's Diatribe At Ukrainian POW Rankles Kyiv
By Mike Eckel & Andy Heil
As Graham Phillips tells it, back in the late 1990s as a Dundee University dual major in philosophy and history and a thespian performing under the stage name Brandon Reed, he saw his "career either as journalism, or writing for the theater."
He appears, after stints in state-sector marketing and communications, publishing, and teaching, to have settled for both.
A British expat reporter and videographer who fancies himself a "truth speaker" out to redeem independent journalism in the fog of the Russia-backed war in eastern Ukraine, Phillips' critics describe him as a propagandist, plain and simple.
In his latest clip to have sparked outrage, Phillips uses his stilted Russian and two minutes of exclusive access (apparently granted by the separatists) to berate a badly disabled Ukrainian man moments before his handover to Kyiv authorities as part of a prisoner swap.
Subtitled in English, the video features Phillips climbing into a minivan marked with a red cross before Volodymyr Zhemchuhov is exchanged for several separatists:
Read the full story here.