A Ukrainian human rights activist discusses the economic embargo on Crimea.
Barring any major developments, that ends the live blog for tonight.
From TASS:
Obama's calling Yanukovich "a stooge of Mr. Putin" is inappropriate -
Kremlin
SOCHI, October 9./TASS/. The Kremlin sees as inappropriate words of US
President Barack Obama, who called former President of Ukraine Viktor
Yanukovich "a corrupt stooge of Mr. Putin".
"Calling 'a stooge' the former president, ousted from power by force
as a result of an armed state coup, organized and sponsored from outside,
is hardly appropriate," he said.
In an interview with CBS, President Obama said: "When I came into
office-- Ukraine was governed by a corrupt ruler who was a stooge of Mr.
Putin".
The latest on Russia-Ukraine debt, from Reuters:
LIMA, Oct 9 (Reuters) - Moscow is not ready to compromise on Ukraine's debt, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said on Friday before a meeting with Ukrainian Finance Minister Natalia Yaresko.
Siluanov has previously said Russia will demand full repayment in December of a $3 billion Eurobond from Ukraine that Kiev sold in late 2013 when former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was still in power.
"We have a firm position, no compromises. One needs to meet, of course, talk, that is always correct and beneficial," Siluanov told reporters on the sidelines of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank semi-annual meeting.
It will be the first meeting between the countries' finance ministers since January, when Ukraine announced its plans to restructure its foreign debt.
Russia has insisted that the debt Kiev owes Moscow is not commercial debt and should not be part of the debt restructuring. Ukraine has said that all of its debt holders should be treated equally.
Video from our Ukrainian Service.
A Village Divided By War In Eastern Ukraine
In the Ukrainian village of Lobacheve, going to school or visiting relatives might require a treacherous boat trip to or from the self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic. While a cease-fire holds, locals are able to move freely between the two halves of the town: one controlled by government troops, the other by Russian-backed separatists.
Information about U.S. plans to revoke its ambassador to Ukraine due to his critical remarks about the country's prosecutor general is fake, wrote a spokesman for the U.S. embassy in a statement for Ukrayinska Pravda.
“Many have asked [us] to comment on the spreading of rumors about statements allegedly made by Vice President Joe Biden. You can ask the office of the vice president again, but they will tell you the same thing -- these statements are fiction,” wrote Jonathan Lalley, the spokesperson, according to Ukrayinska Pravda.
RBK-Ukraina had earlier published parliamentarian Ihor Kononenko’s claim that Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko had criticized Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt’s harsh statements about the country’s Ofiice of the Prosecutor General. According to Kononenko, Biden promised to revoke Pyatt in February 2016.
Pyatt had said last month that the prosecutor general's office refusal to fight internal corruption is undermining the reforms conducted by Ukrainian authorities.