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A priest stands in front of a hospital destroyed after shelling between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian separatists in the eastern city of Donetsk, Ukraine, on January 19.
A priest stands in front of a hospital destroyed after shelling between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian separatists in the eastern city of Donetsk, Ukraine, on January 19.

Live Blog: Ukraine In Crisis (Archive)

Final Summary For January 20

-- A military spokesman says Ukrainian soldiers on January 20 came under attack from Russian regular forces in the north of the conflict zone in eastern Ukraine.

-- Germany's foreign minister says he and his counterparts from Ukraine, Russia, and France will meet on January 21 in Berlin in a bid to de-escalate the conflict in Ukraine.

-- The chief of Russian gas giant Gazprom says Ukraine's discount "winter price" for natural gas will end on April 1. Gazprom CEO Aleksei Miller said in a meeting with Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev that the price for Kyiv would be set in accordance with a long-standing contract, one Kyiv has long sought to change.

-- Russia says a European Union decision to keep sanctions against Russia in place shows the EU is not ready to change an "unfriendly course" toward Moscow. The EU's decision "only confirms the fact that the EU is still not ready to alter its unfriendly course or to give an objective assessment of the Kyiv authorities' actions," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

-- A Georgian man fighting on the Ukrainian side in the conflict in Ukraine has been killed in combat near the Donetsk airport, according to relatives. Media reports in Georgia quote members of Tamaz Sukhiashvili's family as saying he was killed in a battle near the bitterly contested airport on January 17.

-- The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has expressed deep concern over what it says is the "escalation" of violence between government forces and pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine over the past two weeks. In a statement, the ICRC said the fighting in and around the city of Donetsk was killing civilians and "preventing" its team from carrying out its humanitarian work.

-- An explosion near a courthouse in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv has wounded 14 people, four of them seriously.

-- Russia says Kyiv is trying to solve the crisis in eastern Ukraine through military force and that could lead to "irreversible consequences for Ukrainian statehood." Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin spoke to Interfax news agency as Kyiv and Moscow accused each other of ignoring appeals for a cease-fire to be respected.

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

13:08 23.12.2014

10:51 23.12.2014

Ukraine votes to abandon neutral status:

Ukraine's parliament has voted to abandon the country's neutral "non-bloc" status and set membership in NATO and the European Union as a goal, a move immediately denounced by Russia as "unfriendly."

The legislative amendment submitted by President Petro Poroshenko was approved with 303 "yes" votes in the 450-seat Verkhovna Rada on December 23.

A note explaining the changes in Ukraine's law on domestic and foreign policy said that the "non-bloc" status codified under then-President Viktor Yanukovych in 2010 had left the country vulnerable to "external aggression and pressure."

The pro-Western leaders who came to power after Yanukoych fled in the face of protests last February have spoken for months of plans to renounce the neutral status, which prevented Ukraine from seeking NATO membership.

A conflict between government forces and pro-Russian rebels who have seized parts of two eastern provinces has killed more than 4,700 people since April.

Russia's envoy to the OSCE, Andrei Kelin, called the move "unfriendly" and said it would "add trouble and tension to our relationship." (Interfax, Reuters, and AFP)

10:50 23.12.2014

10:49 23.12.2014

Ooops, maybe those Minsk talks won't add up to much after all...

10:47 23.12.2014

10:19 23.12.2014

10:19 23.12.2014

10:18 23.12.2014

10:15 23.12.2014

09:01 23.12.2014

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