EU to renew asset freeze against Yanukovych:
By RFE/RL
BRUSSELS -- EU ambassadors are expected to agree to extend asset freezes imposed against former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and 15 of his associates for another year according to EU sources.
The sources told RFE/RL on February 21 that the decision was expected on March 1. It would then be approved by EU ministers at a meeting on March 3.
The asset freezes were first imposed by the EU after the fall of the Yanukovych regime in February 2014 and targeted people that Brussels believed had misappropriated Ukrainian state funds and assets. They have been prolonged annually ever since.
Viktor Yanukovych's son Oleksandr is included on the list, as are former Prime Ministers Mykola Azarov and Serhiy Arbuzov, former Justice Minister Olena Lukash, and former head of the Ukrainian presidential administration Andriy Klyuyev.
Several people on the list, including Viktor Yanukovych, challenged their inclusion at the European Court of Justice in 2016, but the court struck down the complaints and maintained that the reason for their listings were lawful.
Ukraine's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman:
Kremlin dismisses back-channel Ukrainian peace plan as "absurd":
The Kremlin has dismissed a Ukrainian peace plan created by a pro-Russian Ukrainian lawmaker and given to the White House, calling its provision on Crimea "absurd."
The plan by Ukrainian opposition lawmaker Andriy Artemenko, first reported by The New York Times, calls for Russia to withdraw its forces from eastern Ukraine and for Ukraine to hold a referendum on leasing Crimea, which Moscow illegally annexed in 2014, to Russia for a period of 50 or 100 years.
"How can Russia lease its own region? The very wording is rather absurd," Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on February 20.
"There is a general understanding that there is no alternative to the Minsk agreements," he said, referring to a 2015 plan that has so far has failed to bring peace.
"If a political-diplomatic solution can be found for the Ukraine issue, it is only possible on the basis of the Minsk agreements," he said.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov echoed Peskov's comments, telling RIA Novosti, "It is not possible to lease something from oneself."
The Times said President Donald Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen hand-delivered the proposal to the office of former White House national security adviser Michael Flynn, who was ousted last week. (AP, AFP, Reuters, Interfax)
That concludes our live blog on Ukraine for today. Please join us again tomorrow for more coverage.
In Moscow, Espreso reports that 14 activists from a party that advocates the annexation of Donbas areas controlled by separatists have been detained: