From our news desk in Washington:
Trump Impeachment Testimony Shows Concerns Over Role, Aims Of Giuliani
WASHINGTON -- Two U.S. officials, one current and one former, say they became increasingly alarmed by the role President Donald Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani played in Ukraine, as a congressional impeachment panel entered its fifth day of testimony.
In his opening statement on November 21, David Holmes, a senior staff member from the U.S. embassy in Ukraine, told the hearing that Giuliani made it clear that a White House visit by Ukrainian President Volodymyr was contingent on the newly elected leader publicly announcing investigations into former Vice President Joe Biden, a Democrat who is seeking to challenge Trump in next year's presidential election, and his son Hunter, who sat on the board of Ukrainian natural-gas company Burisma.
This, Holmes said, was part of a narrative that led him to believe that Trump cared only about personal gain and not on agreed-upon interagency foreign policy priorities.
Holmes added that he was "shocked" on July 18 when he found out security assistance to Ukraine, which is engaged in a war with Russia-backed separatists in its eastern region, was being withheld.
The testimony is part of a congressional inquiry into whether Trump committed impeachable offenses and is based on events related to a July 25 phone call between the U.S. president and Zelenskiy.
Holmes told lawmakers that, beginning in March, the embassy’s work became overshadowed by Trump's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, and a "cadre of officials" with a direct line of contact to the U.S. president and his chief of staff Mick Mulvaney.
Instead of pursuing policy goals that focus on "peace and security, economic growth and reform, and rule of law," Giuliani pursued a political agenda of smearing then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch and calling on Kyiv to investigate the Bidens.
After Zelenskiy’s inauguration in May, according to Holmes, three officials said they would take the lead on coordinating foreign policy on Ukraine: then-special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, and Sondland.
Over time, Holmes said he learned that a White House visit by Zelenskiy and up to $400 million of U.S. security assistance was tied to Trump's wish for Kyiv to pursue investigations into the Bidens, particularly Joe Biden.
Until a public announcement was made, Trump would continue withholding $390 million in military aid to Ukraine, Holmes said.
During lunch in Kyiv on July 26 with Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, Holmes said Sondland told him that the U.S. president “doesn’t give a s**t about Ukraine, he only cares about “big stuff.”
When asked what constituted “big stuff,” Sondland told Holmes that “big stuff” meant that which benefits the president like "‘the Biden investigation that Giuliani was pushing."
By late August he said, "my clear impression was that the security assistance was likely intended by the president either as an expression of dissatisfaction that the Ukrainians had not agreed to the Burisma/Biden investigation or as an effort to increase the pressure on them to do so."
Holmes also was told in Kyiv by a visiting lawmaker, Senator Ron Johnson (Republican-Wisconsin) that Trump had "a negative view of Ukraine and that President Zelenskiy would have a difficult time overcoming it.”
An AP video bite courtesy of our multimedia department from today's impeachment hearings in Washington:
Trump Didn't "Give An -- Expletive -- About Ukraine," Impeachment Hearing
The U.S. Embassy political counselor in Kyiv, David Holmes, recounted how the U.S. Ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, told him President Donald Trump's only interest in Ukraine was "big stuff... like the Biden investigation." He was speaking at an impeachment hearing in Washington on November 21.
Here is today's map of the latest situation in the Donbas conflict zone according to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry. (CLICK TO ENLARGE.)
Zelenskiy opens rebuilt bridge in war-torn east:
By RFE/RL
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in a symbolic move that highlights efforts to rebuild Ukraine's war-torn east, has reopened a bridge in the Luhansk region that has sat in ruins the past four years.
Zelenskiy wrote on Facebook late on November 20 that the bridge will be limited in function for several days before traffic will be fully restored.
The bridge over the Siverskiy Donets river in the town of Stanytsya Luhanska, where a Kremlin-backed separatist checkpoint is located, was destroyed during clashes between the separatists and Ukraine's armed forces in 2015.
Since the bridge's destruction, local residents have been unable to visit relatives and friends and get food and medical supplies from the other side.
"I want to counter any possible manipulations right away -- tanks will not be able to pass over the bridge as it is too narrow. But an ambulance can easily pass over it. It is also possible to transport food via the bridge and it won't be difficult to walk from one side to another," Zelenskiy wrote.
Bridge repairs started in early September after demining work around the bridge had been finished.
The opening comes a week after Kyiv and the separatists said they had completed a pullback of troops and weapons from a third frontline area in eastern Ukraine.
The move is one of a series of confidence-building measures that could pave the way for a four-way summit aimed at ending the conflict in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions that has killed more than 13,000 people since April 2014.
Known as the Normandy format, the next four-way talks between Ukraine, Russia, France, and Germany are scheduled to be held in Paris on December 9.