Here is an update on Nadiya Savchenko from RFE/RL's news desk:
A Ukrainian military pilot who has been in Russian custody since July says that her "spirit cannot be crushed."
In a letter written at the Moscow pretrial detention facility where she is being held, Nadiya Savchenko vowed to continue a hunger strike she announced on December 15, and expressed gratitude to those who have supported her.
"I have never been weak and never will be. My spirit cannot be crushed," Savchenko said in the handwritten letter made public on January 12 by lawyer Nikolai Polozov.
Savchenko was captured by pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine in June and jailed in Russia in July.
Russian authorities have charged her with complicity in the deaths of two Russian journalists who were killed covering the Ukraine conflict.
Savchenko denies the charges and says her transfer to Russia was illegal.
In the letter, she wrote that she decided on the hunger strike because it was the only way to fight injustice.
Here is a map of the military situation today in the Donbas region and it really looks like things are hotting up there at the moment -- issued by Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council (click image to enlarge):
Some economics news now, from RFE/RL's news desk:
The ruble was falling on January 13 as prices for oil, a key Russian export, hit new lows on world markets.
The Russian currency was trading at about 65 per U.S. dollar at midmorning in Moscow, its lowest rate this year, and about 77 per euro.
The ruble lost nearly half its value against the dollar last year, driven down by rapidly falling oil prices and economic troubles aggravated by sanctions imposed by the United States, the European Union, and other countries over Moscow's intervention in Ukraine.
The ruble plunged to 80 per dollar on December 16 before recovering ahead of the New Year as the government spent billions of dollars to prop it up.
Oil prices fell to their lowest in nearly six years on January 13 as concerns about a persistent global supply glut overshadowed record high imports from energy-hungry China.
Brent North Sea crude fell to $45.84 per barrel, the lowest since March 2009, and U.S. WTI crude fell to $44.90.
With reporting by Reuters and Interfax