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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

08:57 18.1.2015

Ukrainian presidential aide Yuriy Biryukov said government forces were able to evacuate 23 wounded soldiers and the bodies of three dead soldiers from the Donetsk airport area on Saturday, amid reports of heavy fighting and claims by pro-Russian forces that they controlled the entire facility.

16:29 17.1.2015

That concludes our live blogging for Saturday, January 17.

16:05 17.1.2015

16:05 17.1.2015

15:24 17.1.2015

15:23 17.1.2015

Nadia Savchenko lawyer Mark Feigin says he is checking on reports that the Ukrainian pilot being held by Russian authorities -- and who has been on a hunger strike for the past month -- has been transferred to "sailor's silence" section for confinement. He also wonders aloud why Savchenko's legal team would only receive such news via mass media.

He quotes LifeNews as the source:

Savchenko's health was said on Friday to have been "deteriorating."

15:19 17.1.2015

15:18 17.1.2015

13:23 17.1.2015

The Economist says of Ukraine's economy "On The Edge":

Default would sap domestic confidence in Ukraine’s leadership and roil the currency markets again. George Soros, a financier, is arguing for aid before reforms and promoting a $50 billion package. Such a sum has little chance of being found, but he raises a big question about Ukraine’s importance. A Ukrainian collapse would prove Mr Putin’s contention that Western promises mean little and that change in the post-Soviet world leads only to pain. The West may soon have to decide: what is Ukraine worth?

13:16 17.1.2015

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