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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

13:18 14.1.2015

From our Brussels correspondent @RikardJozwiak, a statement from EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini's spokeswoman, Maja Kocijancic, at a news briefing in Brussels on a rocket attack on a passenger bus in eastern Ukraine and intensified fighting around the Donetsk airport.

"Our thoughts are with the families of those who died. But what this also underlines is that there is a need for a strict observation of the cease-fire that was put in place with the Minsk protocol and implementation memorandum already in September. A lasting cease-fire remains key to the success of current still ongoing efforts to reach a sustainable political solution to the crisis in Ukraine based on the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country and we as the European Union are supporting those efforts."

13:15 14.1.2015

12:56 14.1.2015

From our newsroom, based on a live broadcast:

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has urged Russia to withdraw support for separatists in eastern Ukraine and use "all its influence" to prompt them to respect a cease-fire deal agreed on September 5 in Minsk.

Stoltenberg, speaking at a news conference in Berlin with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on January 14, said the alliance wants "cooperation not confrontation" with Russia, but that if ties are to be improved "Russia must want it" as well.

Stoltenberg also said that Ukraine's recent abandonment of nonaligned status is "the beginning of a process which may end in an application for membership" in NATO.

He said that if Ukraine does seek to join NATO it must first fulfill the main criteria for membership -- the existence of a democratic, open society and the capacity to contribute to the collective security of the alliance.

12:23 14.1.2015

12:02 14.1.2015

12:00 14.1.2015

From our newsroom:

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev says the central bank has all the tools it needs to secure the stability of the ruble, which has fallen to its lowest rate against the dollar since mid-December.

Russia's national currency was trading at around 66 to the U.S. dollar and about 77.5 to the euro on January 14.

Medvedev said at the Yegor Gaidar Forum in Moscow on January 14 that the central bank will not "eat up" the country's foreign currency reserves.

The central bank spent some $76 billion to prop up the ruble last year, sending its reserves to less than $400 billion for the first time since 2010.

Falling global oil prices and Western financial sanctions against Russian individuals and entities over the Kremlin's interference in Ukraine have hit the ruble, which has lost about half its value against the dollar in the past year. (Reuters, AFP, Bloomberg, and Interfax)

11:48 14.1.2015

11:48 14.1.2015

11:32 14.1.2015

Bizarre marriage under the "Donetsk People's Republic" flag.

11:22 14.1.2015

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