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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

07:44 12.12.2014

None of them have undergone inspection by Ukrainian authorities, it goes without saying.

07:48 12.12.2014
Residents of a retirement home walk along a corridor during a TV broadcast showing President Vladimir Putin delivering his annual state-of-the-nation speech on December 4.
Residents of a retirement home walk along a corridor during a TV broadcast showing President Vladimir Putin delivering his annual state-of-the-nation speech on December 4.

Dismissing much of Putin's recent state-of-the-nation speech as so much Soviet-style pablum, "The Economist" goes on to argue:

What most Russians really need is news about the unfolding economic crisis that Mr Putin’s message from above largely ignored. The continuing fall in the rouble, eroding living standards and a sharp rise in food prices are worrying people far more than the fate of separatists in Ukraine. Now that sanctions are starting to bite, enthusiasm for war and isolation is diminishing fast. “Cognitive consonance between propaganda and people’s self-feel does not withstand external shocks,” says Mikhail Dmitriev, head of New Economic Growth, a think-tank.

Over the past nine months opinion polls find that support for the presence of Russian troops in Ukraine have fallen from 74% to 23%. Many who dismissed Western sanctions as irrelevant now fret over Russia’s isolation. “The sanctions are working,” says Lev Gudkov, head of the Levada Centre, an independent pollster. The consumers who have emerged in Russia’s big cities in the past decade are “not prepared to tighten their belts,” he adds. This does not mean that such people are prepared to sacrifice their consumption for civic freedoms, either.

07:53 12.12.2014

From our newsroom a short while ago:

Poroshenko Says Truce In Ukraine Now 'Real'

07:54 12.12.2014

08:00 12.12.2014

While Poroshenko praises the current lull in fighting as a "real" truce, pro-Kyiv military blogger Dmitry Tymchuk with a reminder of more ominous goings-on under the surface. In addition to the arrival on Ukrainian territory of another Russian truck convoy -- the ninth -- Tymchuk says pro-Moscow forces are "centralizing and organizing militias as part of a so-called 'Novorossiya Army.'"

08:06 12.12.2014

Polish Defense Minister Tomasz Siemoniak to broadcaster TVN24 in Warsaw yesterday:

"Over the past few days we have seen unprecedented activity by the Russians in the Baltic Sea, both the Baltic fleet and Russian aircraft."

Siemoniak added that Poland, a member of NATO, is not under threat of attack and the Russian maneuvers are most likely designed to test how NATO forces in the region reacted.

Siemoniak also said Warsaw's decision to acquire long-range missiles from the United States was due on the current tensions in the region.

The $250 million deal includes 40 joint air-to-surface missiles that are to be integrated into the Polish Air Force's three tactical squadrons of F-16 fighter jets.

08:20 12.12.2014

Love the qualification that the staunch Moscow defenders of Russia Insider introduce this piece with:

This is another article we publish not because we agree with its thesis (we don’t) but because it intelligently argues that the western policy of confrontation with Russia is wrong even if one accepts its underlying assumption, which is that Russia’s policies are intended to reverse the “defeat” Russia suffered at the end of the Cold War.

It continues, but you get the picture: "Ignore most of what this says because it's inconvenient, but hey, look: Someone is criticizing Western policy on Russia!"

08:27 12.12.2014

08:28 12.12.2014

08:36 12.12.2014
Sergei Aksyonov, head of the pro-Russian government of Crimea
Sergei Aksyonov, head of the pro-Russian government of Crimea

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko commenting today in an address to the Lowy Institute think tank in Sydney about reports that Russian President Vladimir Putin's delegation to India may have included Sergei Aksyonov, Crimea's Moscow-backed leader:

"Indian position doesn't help and doesn't save Mr Aksyonov. He is a criminal, very simple. He has a criminal background, and no doubt he has a criminal future."

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