We are now closing the live blog for today. Until we resume blogging tomorrow, you can keep up with all our news desk's latest Ukraine coverage here.
Good morning. We'll start the live blog today with this update on talks from RFE/RL's news desk:
Pro-Russian separatist leaders from eastern Ukraine have signaled their readiness to participate in a meeting of the "Contact Group" in Minsk on January 16.
Igor Plotnitsky, head of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic, said late on January 15 that he would not go to the Belarusian capital for the meeting with representatives of Ukraine, Russia, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), but was sending another man, Vladislav Deinego.
A leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, Denis Pushilin, said his delegation was also ready for the Minsk meeting.
Pushilin said that, if there was a breakthrough on January 16, Plotnitsky and the separatist leader in Donetsk, Aleksandr Zakharchenko, would come to Minsk.
The last round of talks of the Contact Group took place in Minsk on December 24.
Former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma, Russian Ambassador to Ukraine Mikhail Zurabov, and OSCE envoy to Ukraine Heidi Tagliavini led their respective delegations at those talks.
Representatives of Ukraine, Russia, and the OSCE met in Kyiv late on January 15 to prepare "for the planned consultations" in Minsk, according to an OSCE press statement.
Meanwhile, the White House says U.S. President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have discussed their concerns about an escalation in violence in eastern Ukraine.
In a January 15 phone call, Obama and Merkel discussed the need for "a lasting and peaceful resolution to the conflict" between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian forces, the White House said in a statement.
They spoke shortly after the rebels declared that they had captured the battered airport in Donetsk, an eastern Ukrainian city largely controlled by the separatists.
The Ukrainian military, meanwhile, said it was maintaining its positions at the airport.
(Based on an OSCE press statement and reporting by TASS, Interfax, AP, and RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service)
Ukrainian forces say they still control Donetsk's airport:
Ukrainian authorities are denying claims by pro-Russian separatists that rebel forces have seized control of the international airport in Donetsk.
Vladyslav Seleznyov, spokesman for the General Staff of the Ukrainian armed forces, said on January 16 that "the new terminal at the Donetsk airport is under the control of the forces of the antiterrorist operation."
That is what Ukrainian officials often call government forces fighting against the pro-Russian separatists who have seized parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
The airport is in ruins and has long been closed, but it has been the site of some of the fiercest fighting in the conflict that has killed more than 4,700 people since April.
The U.S. State Department said on January 14 that the intense fighting around the airport was among the "latest egregious violations of the commitments made by the Russian-backed separatists" under a September 5 cease-fire plan. (UNIAN and Reuters)