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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

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Here is the latest Ukraine item from RFE/RL's news desk:

Officials in Washington and Moscow say U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov plan to meet in Rome on December 14 amid ongoing tensions over the conflict in eastern Ukraine.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on December 13 that Lavrov could raise Moscow's concerns about legislation passed by the U.S. Congress known as the Ukraine Freedom Support Act.

The bill, which still requires U.S. President Barack Obama's signature, raises the prospects of harsher sanctions against Russia and the delivery of lethal U.S. military assistance to Kyiv for its fight against Kremlin-back separatists.

Ryabkov said Moscow would take counter measures if the legislation is implemented.

Asked about the unanimous approval of the bill this week by U.S. lawmakers, Ryabkov told Russia's Interfax news agency: "Certainly, we will not be able to leave that without an answer.

The legislation would open the way for the provision of up to $350 million worth of U.S. military hardware to Ukraine.

Those deliveries could include antitank and antiarmor weapons, radar, surveillance drones, and communications equipment.

Ukrainian lawmakers welcomed the decision by U.S. lawmakers as "historic."

The announcement of talks between Kerry and Lavrov comes a day after Lavrov and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko both suggested that prospects have improved for bringing about a diplomatic end to the war in eastern Ukraine.

Lavrov said on December 12 that "a chance to establish peace in Ukraine has emerged" because a truce was established and a cease-fire was being implemented.

He said: "We need to find a way to resume the work of the Contact Group" -- the mechanism for talks between representatives of Ukraine, the rebels, Russia, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) that produced a September 5 Minsk agreement on a cease-fire and steps toward peace.

Poroshenko also said on December 12 that a "real" cease-fire was in place between Ukrainian government forces and pro-Russian separatists.

But despite the fresh cease-fire, Kyiv and the separatists have been unable to reach agreement on when their next round of peace talks would be scheduled in Minsk.

Meanwhile, separatist leaders in Donetsk said there were several "insignificant violations" of the latest cease-fire on December 13.

(With reporting by Reuters, AP, AFP, dpa, and Interfax)

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