Russia moves seized Ukrainian ships ahead of possible handover:
By the Crimea Desk of RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service
Russia has begun moving three seized Ukrainian naval ships ahead of a possible handover of the ships back to Ukraine.
The three ships could be seen early on November 17 being towed off the eastern coast of the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, accompanied by Russian naval vessels.
The moves followed comments a day earlier by Andriy Yermak, a top aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who said the turnover of the ships was underway.
"The process of returning the...ships seized in November has entered its final stage," Yermak was quoted by Novoye vremya as saying.
The ships--two small armored vessels and a tug boat--were seized by Russia off the coast of Crimea in November 2018.
Moscow, whose 2014 annexation of Crimea has gone largely unrecognized around the world, alleged that the ships had illegally entered its territorial waters.
Ukraine denied that.
In September, Russia returned the captured sailors, as part of a prisoner-exchange deal with Kyiv.
Since his election this spring, Zelenskiy has moved quickly to find a way to try and end the conflict with Moscow.
Now in its sixth year, the fighting between Russia-backed separatists and Ukrainian government forces has killed more than 13,000 people in eastern Ukraine.
Next month, the leaders of Germany, France, Ukraine, and Russia will meet in Paris in an effort to find a resolution to the conflict. (w/Novoye vremya, Kommersant)
Kremlin adviser says summit on Ukraine conflict may happen in 2019:
By RFE/RL
A senior Kremlin adviser said that a major summit aimed at resolving the more-than-five-year-old conflict in Ukraine could be held before the end of the year.
The November 17 comments by Yury Ushakov on state-run channel television echoed similar remarks from a Kremlin spokesman, a signal that the Kremlin was supportive of new efforts to find an end to the war that has killed more than 13,000 people since 2014
France last week announced that a meeting of leaders of France, Germany, Russia, and Ukraine had been scheduled for December 9, but there has been no confirmation from Moscow.
Speaking on November 17 on Rossia-1 TV, Ushakov said that a meeting would be held this year.
"I think there will be a chance to organize [the summit] this year," Ushakov said. "I can't say the exact date, because it is still under discussion, but, obviously, this year."
Earlier, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying that any potential summit would not be directly tied to the adoption of a special status for eastern Ukraine. That has been a sticking point in past negotiations.
Kyiv and Moscow have made substantive steps to ease tensions, more than five years after Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimea Peninsula and fomented a separatist war in eastern Ukraine.
Earlier this year, the two sides exchanged prisoners for the first time. And this month, Ukrainian government forces and Russian-backed fighters began withdrawing from a village in eastern Ukraine.
Also on November 17, Russia began towing three captured Ukrainian Navy ships away from a Crimea port, in what appeared to be a move toward returning the ships to Kyiv. (w/Interfax)