Here is today's map of the military situation in eastern Ukraine, according to Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council:
A new Verkhovna Rada will meet for the first tme today:
Ukraine's newly elected parliament is due to convene for its first session on November 27.
Pro-Western parties swept to victory in the October 26 elections, led by President Petro Poroshenko's bloc and Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk's People's Front.
Poroshenko called the early poll in a bid to set Ukraine on a new path eight months after pro-Moscow President Viktor Yanukovych was ousted following opposition protests.
Five pro-Western parties which have agreed to form a ruling coalition control a total of 288 seats in the 421-seat parliament.
However, talks amongst the coalition partners on forming a new Cabinet have bogged down.
On November 25, Poroshenko vowed to take the first steps this week towards forming a new government.
The United States and other Western government have criticized Kyiv for failing to put together a cabinet following the early elections and putting on hold needed reforms linked to Western aid.
Analysts say the delay is due to rivalry between Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk over control of key portfolios.
Meanwhile, NATO's top commander says Russian forces are still operating in eastern Ukraine, providing the backbone of separatist rebels fighting the Kyiv government.
U.S. Air Force General Philip Breedlove was speaking on November 26 during a visit to Kyiv as head of U.S. forces in Europe.
Breedlove said Russia's "militarization" of the Crimean Peninsula it annexed from Ukraine in March meant Moscow could exert influence over almost the entire Black Sea region.
The United States also continued to watch for indications Russia might move "nuclear capabilities" onto the peninsula in line with a Russian defense ministry announcement last March, he said.
Russia denies sending troops or equipment to the rebels but accuses Kyiv of using indiscriminate force against civilians in the two eastern territories of Donetsk and Luhansk. (Reuters and AFP)
This ends our live-blogging for November 26. Be sure to check back tomorrow for our continuing coverage.
Turkey has professed itself the steadfast defender of the Crimean Tatars’ minority rights, but, so far, that mission has not interfered with its interest in trade with Russia, its largest export-import partner.
The declarations of official concern continue, however. On a November 10 visit to Kyiv, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Çavuşoğlu announced plans to send an unofficial monitoring mission to Crimea to investigate claims of human rights violations against the ethnic Crimean Tatar population.
The move is Ankara’s first concrete step to support the Crimean Tatars, who claim they have been repressed and silenced by the local, de-facto pro-Russian authorities in the months since Russia’s March annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula.
The entire Crimean Tatar population was deported under Soviet leader Josef Stalin to the steppes of Central Asia in 1944; as many as half perished during the arduous journey. About 300,000 returned to resettle in Crimea after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, and most opposed Russia’s move to absorb the peninsula this spring.
Their opposition has not been tolerated. At least seven Crimean Tatar activists have “been forcibly disappeared or have gone missing” since May, Human Rights Watch said in an October report. Two other Crimean Tatars without apparent political ties have also gone missing and one was later found hanged, “contributing to the atmosphere of fear and hostility in Crimea for anyone who is pro-Ukraine, including Crimean Tatars,” the report said.
Mubeyyin Batu Altan, founder of the New York-based Crimean Tatar Research and Information Center, said that while the news of the Turkish fact-finding mission is welcome, many in the Crimean Tatar community feel abandoned because Turkey, which has long styled itself as the defender of the Tatar people, has not done more.
“We thought that Turkey would be a stronger supporter of the Crimean Tatars, but they do not want to jeopardize their billions and billions of dollars of business with Russia and they are not going to jeopardize this business because of a handful of Crimean Tatars,” Altan said. “And that is disappointing for us.”