Just reupping this heartbreaking video from late last week: A Family Copes With Tragedy In Wartorn Donetsk
So it looks like the Astana summit isn't going to happen.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has told Russian President Vladimir Putin that a four-way summit on the Ukraine crisis will not be held until progress has been made on the Minsk peace plan.
Merkel spokesman Steffen Seibert said Merkel told Putin via phone on January 10 that she expects Moscow to use its influence on pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine to reach "consensual solutions."
She told Putin that a summit of French, German, Russian, and Ukrainian leaders proposed for the Kazakh capital, Astana, cannot be held due to a lack of progress on the situation.
Such a summit had been proposed to be held in Astana on January 15.
Those countries' foreign ministers are to meet in Berlin on January 12.
Seibert said Merkel also discussed the Ukraine crisis with Poroshenko.
More than 4,700 people have been killed in fighting in eastern Ukraine since April.
As we noted earlier, Fitch cuts Russia's credit rating to step above junk:
The international ratings agency Fitch Ratings has cut Russia's credit rating to the lowest investment grade after plummeting oil prices and the Ukraine conflict triggered the worst currency crisis since 1998.
Fitch announced on January 9 it had lowered its rating for Russian government debt to BBB-, just one notch above junk level.
It added a negative outlook on the rating, saying, "The economic outlook has deteriorated significantly since mid-2014 following sharp falls in the oil price and the ruble, coupled with a steep rise in interest rates."
Standard & Poor's cut Russia's credit rating to BBB- in April.
The world's biggest energy exporter is on the brink of a recession after crude prices fell more than 50 percent since June and the West imposed sanctions following Russia's annexation of Crimea in March. (AFP, Bloomberg.com, TASS)
It’s one of the greatest war crimes of modern times – and the truth still hasn’t been told. On July 17th 2014 at about 16:20 local time, Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine. All 298 passengers died, including many children. Who fired the missile? Over several months the Berlin-based investigative newsroom CORRECT!V has gathered facts, investigated in eastern Ukraine and Russia, and found witnesses to the missile launch. The investigation unveiled a clear chain of evidence. MH17 was downed by a ground-launched BUK missile – launched by a unit of the 53rd Russian Air Defense Brigade from Kursk. The brigade unit, tasked with protecting Russian tank units, was operating in mid July on Ukrainian territory without displaying national emblems.