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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

16:31 13.12.2014

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16:42 13.12.2014

Writing for the BBC, David Stern has been looking at the involvement of the far-right in Ukrainian politics:

Ever since Ukraine's February revolution, the Kremlin has characterised the new leaders in Kiev as a "fascist junta" made up of neo-Nazis and anti-Semites, set on persecuting, if not eradicating, the Russian-speaking population.

This is demonstrably false. Far-right parties failed to pass a 5% percent barrier to enter parliament, although if they had banded together, and not split their vote, they would have probably slipped past the threshold.

Only one government minister has links to nationalist parties - though he is in no way a neo-Nazi or fascist. And the speaker of parliament, Volodymyr Groysman, is Jewish. He has the third most powerful position in the country after the president and prime minister.

But Ukrainian officials and many in the media err to the other extreme. They claim that Ukrainian politics are completely fascist-free. This, too, is plain wrong.

As a result, the question of the presence of the far-right in Ukraine remains a highly sensitive issue, one which top officials and the media shy away from. No-one wants to provide fuel to the Russian propaganda machine.

Ever since Ukraine's February revolution, the Kremlin has characterised the new leaders in Kiev as a "fascist junta" made up of neo-Nazis and anti-Semites, set on persecuting, if not eradicating, the Russian-speaking population.

This is demonstrably false. Far-right parties failed to pass a 5% percent barrier to enter parliament, although if they had banded together, and not split their vote, they would have probably slipped past the threshold.

Only one government minister has links to nationalist parties - though he is in no way a neo-Nazi or fascist. And the speaker of parliament, Volodymyr Groysman, is Jewish. He has the third most powerful position in the country after the president and prime minister.

But Ukrainian officials and many in the media err to the other extreme. They claim that Ukrainian politics are completely fascist-free. This, too, is plain wrong.

As a result, the question of the presence of the far-right in Ukraine remains a highly sensitive issue, one which top officials and the media shy away from. No-one wants to provide fuel to the Russian propaganda machine.

But this blanket denial also has its dangers, since it allows the ultra-nationalists to fly under the radar. Many Ukrainians are unaware that they exist, or even what a neo-Nazi or fascist actually is, or what they stand for.

Read the entire article here

17:47 13.12.2014

Ukrainian media are reporting that the airspace over Dnipropetrovsk is being closed because of the threat of a terrorist attack.

18:30 13.12.2014

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20:42 13.12.2014

The Russian TASS news agency has published this item on the closure of airports in eastern Ukraine:

KIEV, December 13 -- Ukraine’s state aviation service has suspended flights to and from three major airports - Kharkov, Dnepropetrovsk and Zaporozhye - for security reasons, a local daily has said with reference to the service’s chief, Denis Antonyuk.

The measure is effective starting from [midnight] on Saturday, December 13.

Antonyuk said “security considerations” were the reason. He did not elaborate.

This is not the first time the Ukrainian state aviation service closes Ukrainian airports to flights. Air links with Donetsk have been disrupted since May. Flights between Kharkov and Moscow were banned last May, too, and between Dnepropetrovsk and Moscow, in December.

(TASS)

20:44 13.12.2014

20:46 13.12.2014

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