Prosecutor says Saakashvili won't face arrest or extradition:
By RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service
Ukraine's top prosecutor says former Georgian President and Ukrainian regional governor Mikheil Saakashvili will not be arrested for defying the authorities with his dramatic return to the country after his citizenship was canceled.
In his September 16 comments, Prosecutor-General Yuriy Lutsenko also said that Saakashvili, who is wanted in Georgia on allegations of corruption during his presidency, would not be extradited and suggested the stateless ex-leader may have a document allowing him to remain in Ukraine.
"Saakashvili will not be arrested in this case, Saakashvili cannot be extradited from this country while he has a residence permit or other document that he has filed," Lutsenko said at the annual Yalta European Strategy forum in Kyiv.
Lutsenko did not specify what kind of document he was referring to.
The reformist, pro-Western president of Georgia from 2004-13, Saakashvili was stripped of his Georgian citizenship in 2015 after he took Ukrainian citizenship in order to become governor of the Odesa region at the request of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.
He resigned as Odesa governor in November 2016, complaining of official obstruction of anticorruption efforts, accusing Poroshenko of dishonesty, and charging that the government in Kyiv was sabotaging crucial reforms.
Poroshenko stripped Saakashvili of his Ukrainian citizenship in July, leaving him essentially stateless. On September 10, Saakashvili defied Ukrainian authorities and made a chaotic crossing into the country from Poland, helped by hundreds of his supporters.
Authorities on September 12 formally served notice on Saakashvili in the western city of Lviv for what officials called his illegal entry into the country. They claimed several border officers were injured in the altercation at the border with his supporters.
Lutsenko said on September 16 that those who helped bring Saakashvili across the border would face criminal charges but would not be arrested.
But he said those who "beat Ukrainian border guards" would face arrest and prosecution.
This ends our live blogging for September 16. Be sure to check back tomorrow for our continuing coverage.
U.S. envoy welcomes Russian proposal for peacekeepers, but sees "obstacles":
By RFE/RL
The U.S. special envoy for efforts to end the conflict in eastern Ukraine has called a Russian proposal to send United Nations peacekeepers to the region a "step forward" but warns there are still many "obstacles" to the plan suggested by Moscow.
The envoy, Kurt Volker, on September 16 said, "It's very interesting that Russia proposed a UN protection mission.... This is a step forward in a way bringing it up for discussion and bringing it to the [UN] Security Council."
"There's more on the table now that we can work with," he said on the sidelines of the annual Yalta European Strategy conference in Kyiv.
But he added that the mandate of any UN force must not "deepen the division" of the country.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has said that the purpose of a proposed UN-mandated peacekeeping mission in war-torn eastern Ukrainian must be to foster peace, not to cement what he called "Russia's occupation" of a chunk of his country.
Poroshenko said the mission should patrol the whole conflict zone including the border between Russia and the separatist-held parts of Ukraine's Donetsk and Luhansk regions, which Kyiv says is used to ship weapons and military personnel in from Russia.
Russia initially indicated that under its plan, the peacekeepers would operate only along the front line separating Ukrainian government forces and Russia-backed separatists. Russia also said the plan should be subject to approval by the separatists.
But Russian President Vladimir Putin on September 11 signaled his willingness to look into the idea of deploying the peacekeepers not only along the conflict line but also in other areas where monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) work.
Some 600 observers from the OSCE are in eastern Ukraine, but their presence has failed to halt the fighting.
Volker reiterated that the UN force's mandate should not be limited to protecting the OSCE observers along the conflict demarcation line between zones controlled by Kyiv and those held by the pro-Russia separatists.
The current proposal, he said, "would only protect monitors, not people. It would not give access to control the Russia-Ukraine border. There's a lot of obstacles, a lot of problems with the way it was proposed."
Volker said the force should control the Ukrainian side of the border with Russia, enabling it to help prevent any movement of heavy weapons from Russia to the separatists.
Despite overwhelming evidence, Moscow denies that it has played a role in the fighting in eastern Ukraine.
The comments came after Volker early on September 16 wrote on Twitter that "The conflict in eastern Ukraine is not an indigenous uprising; it's an externally driven conflict & Russia is responsible."
Russia's state-run TASS news agency quoted Volker on September 16 as saying he might meet with Vladislav Surkov, Putin's point man for the conflict in eastern Ukraine, next month.
No date was set, although TASS quoted a U.S. official as saying the meeting would likely occur in October.
The conflict has killed more than 10,000 civilians and combatants in eastern Ukraine since it erupted in April 2014, after Russia seized control of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula and fomented separatism in some eastern parts of the country.
The United States and European Union have slapped sanctions on Moscow for its actions in Ukraine. (w/Reuters, AFP, TASS, Interfax)
The closure of coal mines in separatist-controlled territory in eastern Ukraine is causing serious trouble for miners working nearby. As groundwater fills up the disused mineshafts, it seeps into the operational ones -- and brings a risk of imminent flooding that threatens countless livelihoods. (Current Time TV)
