Sentsov to receive EU's top human rights prize a year later:
By RFE/RL
Ukrainian cinematographer Oleg Sentsov, who was one of the most prominent political prisoners in Russia, will receive last year's Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought from the European Parliament on November 26.
The award ceremony will take place at the EU's legislative chamber in Strasbourg, where Sentsov will address the parliament at noon local time.
Sentsov, 43, until September 7 had been serving a 20-year prison sentence on what international, Russian, and Ukrainian rights groups said were trumped-up charges of "plotting terrorist acts" against Russia in Crimea, the peninsula that Moscow annexed from Ukraine in early 2014.
He had opposed and refused to recognize Moscow's imposed rule on the Ukrainian territory.
He was incarcerated for more than five years, and spent 145 days on hunger strike in 2018, demanding that Russia release all of its Ukrainian political prisoners.
Last year, the European Parliament awarded Sentsov the Sakharov Prize while he was still imprisoned.
It was for "for freedom of thought and in recognition of his peaceful protest against the illegal occupation of his native Crimea, as well as for courage, determination and belief in supporting human dignity, democracy, the rule of law and human rights," said Michael Gahler, a member of the European People's Party, who nominated him.
Individuals or organizations are honored with the prize for defending human rights and fundamental freedoms. It is named after Soviet physicist and political dissident Andrei Sakharov.
Putin, Zelenskiy speak on phone ahead of next month's planned meeting:
By RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service
Russian President Vladimir Putin has spoken with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskiy on the phone, two weeks before their planned meeting in Paris.
Statements from the Kremlin and Zelenskiy's office said the November 25 call included discussion of three-way negotiations between Russia, Ukraine, and the European Union for Russia to keep sending natural gas to European customers via pipelines that traverse Ukraine.
A gas-transit contract between Moscow and Kyiv expires on January 1, while the next round of EU-mediated talks for a new contract are scheduled for next week.
Disputes between the two neighbors in 2006 and 2009 left many European countries with gas shortages in mid-winter.
Zelenskiy's office also said he insisted that Russia "return all weapons, equipment, and documentation that had been aboard" three Ukrainian naval vessels that were impounded by Russia in 2018 and returned to Ukraine last week.
Neither statement mentioned the planned December 9 meeting with the leaders of France and Germany whose purpose is to put an end to the Donbas conflict with Moscow-backed separatists.
Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula preceded the war, which has killed more than 13,000 people and internally displaced 1.5 million more since April 2014.
Shooting on both sides persist on a daily basis, often leading to casualties, including civilians.
Ukraine's military reported on November 25 that a woman was wounded by gunfire while walking with her 3-year-old child in the Ukrainian-controlled frontline town of Maryinka in the eastern Donetsk region.
A joint statement in July following the EU-Ukraine summit stated that Moscow's actions toward Ukraine since February 2014 constitute "aggression by the Russian armed forces."
Russia denies direct involvement in the Donbas conflict, insisting that it is purely an internal conflict.
"Mayor" of separatist-controlled town was Kyiv informant:
By RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service
KYIV -- The former "mayor" of Horlivka, a town in the Donetsk region controlled by Russia-backed separatists, is a Ukrainian military intelligence agent.
A spokesman for the Ukrainian Defense Ministry's military intelligence, Vadym Skibitskiy, said on November 25 that Eduard Matyukha had provided Kyiv with information on the situation in the territories Ukraine doesn’t control in the eastern region of Donetsk for five years.
Matyukha said the day before that he returned to Ukraine-controlled territory after carrying out intelligence activities in separatist-controlled Horlivka, an industrial town that had a prewar population of approximately 267,000 people.
Matyukha was briefly mayor for an unspecified period because a conflict erupted between rival militant groups that was partly one of his alleged assignments to cause.
However, he gained the trust of the pro-Russian separatists and became the first secretary of the Communist Party in Horlivka, Skibitskiy said.
He managed to establish contacts with the Communist Party of Russia and through those links managed to clarify their role in Russia's policy toward Ukraine's eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, where some districts have been controlled by the separatists since April 2014.
Kyiv-Moscow relations have been tense since Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula and incited separatism in the east, where more than 13,000 people have been killed in the ongoing conflict since 2014.
Before the war and until November 2013, Matyukha was the first deputy mayor of Horlivka.
That ends the live blogging for today. See you again tomorrow!