That concludes our live-blogging of the Ukraine crisis for Sunday, January 15, 2017. Check back here tomorrow for more of our continuing coverage.
Here is today's map of the security situation in eastern Ukraine, according to the National Security and Defense Council:
Trump Says He's Open To Shift On Russia Sanctions
By RFE/RL
President-elect Donald Trump will keep U.S. sanctions against Russia in place "at least for a period of time," he has said in an interview, adding that he would consider lifting the sanctions once Russian President Vladimir Putin proves he can be an ally.
"If you get along and if Russia is really helping us, why would anybody have sanctions if somebody’s doing some really great things?" Trump said in the interview published in The Wall Street Journal on January 13, a week before his inauguration.
Trump has said he wants to improve relations with Moscow and would take a second look at the sanctions, although several of his chosen cabinet members said this week that they support the restrictive measures.
In a move appeared designed to make it harder for Trump to roll back the sanctions after Barack Obama leaves office on January 20, the president extended on January 13 all U.S. sanctions on Russia over its annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in March 2014 and its backing of separatists in the country’s east.
Obama said the Russian government and other people and organizations targeted by the sanctions have "undermined democratic processes and institutions in Ukraine" by their "use of force in Ukraine" and thereby "threaten its peace, security, stability, sovereignty, and territorial integrity."
Because of the threat to Ukraine, Obama added, Russia's actions "pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States."