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An activist stops a lorry near the village of Chongar, in the Kherson region adjacent to Crimea.
An activist stops a lorry near the village of Chongar, in the Kherson region adjacent to Crimea.

Live Blog: Ukraine In Crisis (ARCHIVE)

Follow all of the latest developments as they happen.

Final Summary For September 21

-- NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has called on Russia to withdraw heavy weapons from eastern Ukraine.

-- No trucks have passed through the administrative border from mainland Ukraine to Crimea overnight, according to Oleh Slobodyan, the spokesperson for Ukraine’s State Border Service.

-- Hundreds of pro-Kyiv activists from Crimea's Tatar community and other opposition activists are taking part in the blockade of roads from Ukraine to the Crimean peninsula to protest Russia's annexation of the region last year.

-- The German government has criticized Russia for not distancing itself from plans by Russian-backed separatists to hold local elections in eastern Ukraine without consulting Kyiv.

*NOTE: Times are stated according to local time in Kyiv

12:58 21.8.2015

12:58 21.8.2015

The communist party of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic has issued a party membership card with ID number 000001 to Vladimir Lenin, Bolshevik Revolution leader.

12:36 21.8.2015

As Russia crawls deeper into its sanctioned-food-destruction hole, local activists join the fight.

In a video published on YouTube yesterday, two Russian Cossacks and a former member of well-known rock band Leningrad, Stat Baretsky, came to a St. Petersburg’s supermarket chain in search of sanctioned produce.

In a bizarre fit of patriotism, Baretsky destroys two cans of foreign beer by biting through them and tearing them apart. He then proceeds to offer money to supermarket employees to clean up the mess after him.

The group buys all the foreign goods they can find in the shop and asks the management for their certification.

“We are in a state of Cold War with the European Union,” says one of the Cossacks. “Why does Europe cause us troubles, and we have to feed it by buying its goods?”

The management later assured them that all the goods sold at the supermarket were legal and of proper quality.

12:32 21.8.2015

Ukraine’s Independence Day on August 24 will be traditionally marked by a military parade through the center of Kyiv, says Ukraine’s Culture Ministry.

The decision, however, was criticized among social media users yesterday evening after the parade’s rehearsal. Kyiv citizens could see bright flashes and hear explosions, which were part of the rehearsal, according to local press reports. Some witnesses said the explosions were “unexpected and scary.”

“I don’t know who is rehearsing what, but I hate those people. My hands are shaking and I’m crying … I can imagine what those who were under shelling feel like,” wrote an activist Oleksandra Dvoretska on Facebook.

At the same time, a photo of a soldier with an amputated leg saluting while watching the parade rehearsal, was shared some 250 times on Facebook.

“And let another *** tell me that we don’t need a parade… Glory to the nation!” wrote the author of the post.

12:15 21.8.2015

09:36 21.8.2015

21:52 20.8.2015

We are now closing the live blog for today. Until we resume again tomorrow morning, you can keep up with all our ongoing Ukraine coverage here.

21:48 20.8.2015

21:47 20.8.2015

21:45 20.8.2015

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