More on the new Canadian foreign minister, who has Ukrainian roots:
Some pretty heavy hitters have signed this letter, including former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt, former Slovak Prime Minister Mikulas Dzurinda, and former Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves:
Here's a taster:
We -- decision-makers and public figures from across Europe -- welcome your election as America’s 45th president. We are eager to work with your administration to sustain our powerful transatlantic Alliance, jointly defending our way of life at a time of great peril.
Russia’s continuing efforts to destabilize Ukraine, and its illegal annexation of Crimea, threaten the peace, predictability and security that Americans and Europeans created together through our victory in the Cold War. We are concerned that the prospect of a new grand bargain with Russia will endanger this historic achievement.
It would be a grave mistake to end the current sanctions on Russia or accept the division and subjugation of Ukraine. Doing so would demoralize those seeking a Euro-Atlantic orientation for that country. It would also destabilize our Eastern neighborhood economically and give heart to extremist, oligarchic and anti-Western elements there.
The wider damage would be grave too. The aftershocks of such a deal would shake American credibility with allies in Europe and elsewhere. The rules-based international order on which Western security has depended for decades would be weakened. The alliances that are the true source of American greatness would erode: countries that have expended blood, treasure and political capital in support of transatlantic security will wonder if America is now no longer a dependable friend.
Have no doubt: Vladimir Putin is not America’s ally. Neither is he a trustworthy international partner. Both of the presidents who preceded you tried in their own ways to deal with Russia’s leadership in the spirit of trust and friendship. Big mistake: Putin treated their good intentions as opportunities.
Read the entire letter with its full list of signatories here
From the U.K.'s foreign secretary:
Here's a video from our multimedia department on NATO forces arriving in Germany as part of exercises that one commander has called "a direct response to the destabilizing efforts of the Russian government in Ukraine":
NATO Prepares New Show Of Force In Eastern Europe
Hundreds of U.S. tanks and armored vehicles arrived in Germany, for a new show of strength on the border with Russia.
Another item from RFE/RL's Ukraine correspondent Christopher Miller. It seems Nadia Savchenko has been drawing the ire of Ukraine's authorities once more:
Savchenko Publishes ‘Prisoner’ Lists, Angering Ukrainian Authorities
KYIV -- Ukrainian lawmaker Nadia Savchenko has published the names of hundreds of people who have been taken captive or gone missing during the nearly three-year-old war in eastern Ukraine, ignoring appeals by authorities to keep the information secret.
In a Facebook post on January 10, Savchenko, a former military navigator who was jailed in Russia in 2014 and became a symbol of Ukrainian resistance against Russian aggression before her release in May, said she hoped that by publicizing the lists Ukrainian authorities would work faster to facilitate their release.
"Why publish the lists of prisoners and missing people?" she wrote. "So that it would be possible to find them!"
Savchenko laid out a three-step plan to exchange captives, find those believed to be held in secret jails, and locate and identify the remains of those missing who are found dead.
A senior official at the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) told RFE/RL on condition of anonymity so that he could speak freely that his office was "not supportive" of Savchenko's decision to publish the lists. Doing so, he said, makes relatives of those people listed "more vulnerable to scammers and people who want to abuse that information," adding that it was the family's right to decide whether they wanted the names of their loved ones to be disclosed.
"We cooperated with [Savchenko] because after her release she wanted to help [with prisoner exchanges]," the SBU official said. "We shared information with her in confidence on the condition that she would not make that info public."
Releasing the information, he added, "damages the credibility of the Ukrainian side."
Secret Meeting
Savchenko outraged Ukrainian authorities last month after meeting in secret on a trip to Minsk with separatist leaders for consultations on prisoner swaps. Criticized by her own political party for the move, she quit and launched her own political movement.
More than 9,750 people have been killed since the conflict between Kyiv's forces and Russia-backed separatists erupted in eastern Ukraine in April 2014, after Russia seized control of the Crimea Peninsula.
Savchenko says she was abducted by Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine in June 2014 and taken illegally into Russia, where she was jailed and tried on charges of involvement in what Moscow called the killing of two Russian journalists who died in the conflict
Savchenko was convicted earlier this year and sentenced to 22 years in prison, but was pardoned by Russian President Vladimir Putin in May and released in a swap for two Russians held by Kyiv. She was widely hailed as a hero upon her return to Ukraine, but has faced criticism from nationalists since then.