Follow all of the latest developments as they happen.
Final News Summary For September 29
-- We have started a new Ukraine Live Blog. Find it here.
-- Ukraine is marking 75 years since the World War II massacre of 33,771 Jews on the outskirts of Nazi-occupied Kyiv.
-- German Chancellor Angela Merkel has urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to stabilize a fragile cease-fire in Ukraine and do all he could to improve what Merkel called a "catastrophic humanitarian situation" in Syria.
-- Russia's Supreme Court has upheld a decision by a Moscow-backed Crimean court to ban the Mejlis, the self-governing body of Crimean Tatars in the occupied Ukrainian territory.
* NOTE: Times are stated according to local time in Kyiv(GMT/UTC +3)
That concludes our live-blogging of the Ukraine crisis for Wednesday, September 28, 2016. Check back here tomorrow for more of our continuing coverage. Thanks for reading and take care.
09:1329.9.2016
Good morning.
Here's a selection of some of the things that caught our eye overnight. Needless to say, the new MH17 report figures prominently:
From Ukraine's representative to the Council of Europe:
And then there's this from the spokeswoman for the Ukraiian Foreign Ministry:
09:1629.9.2016
Today is the anniversary of the Babi Yar massacre during World War II. Our news desk has this item on how Ukraine's being marking the event:
Ukraine Commemorates WWII Babi Yar Victims
Workers carry out some final preparations for commemorations of the 75th anniversary of Babi Yar tragedy, in Kyiv this week.
Ukraine is marking 75 years since the World War II massacre of 33,771 Jews on the outskirts of Nazi-occupied Kyiv.
The slaughter of Jewish men, women, and children on September 29-30, 1941, at the Babi Yar ravine was an early example of the industrial-scale murder the Nazis would employ in their quest to annihilate the Jews.
Up to 100,000 more people -- Jews, Roma, and Soviet prisoners of war -- were executed there during the war.
Israeli President Reuven Rivlin had been due to attend a memorial ceremony led by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko later on September 29.
PHOTO GALLERY: Remembering The Massacre At Babi Yar
'Still Much To Say': Remembering The Massacre At Babyn Yar
1/14A Nazi sentry in Kyiv on September 19, 1941. In June of that year, after two years of neutrality between Germany and the Soviet Union, Nazi forces launched a surprise attack on the U.S.S.R. Within weeks, Nazi forces had overrun eastern Poland and other Soviet-occupied territories, as well as much of the Ukrainian S.S.R. and other Soviet republics.
In the autumn of 1941, one the gravest atrocities of the 20th century unfolded in a ragged ravine on the outskirts of Nazi-occupied Kyiv.
2/14A Jewish man in western Ukraine being attacked by a mob next to a bust of Lenin. After occupying Nazi forces opened Soviet secret police prisons, atrocities carried out under Stalin were laid bare and exploited by Nazi propagandists, who fueled anti-Semitism by highlighting the Jewish backgrounds of some early Soviet leaders.
In the autumn of 1941, one the gravest atrocities of the 20th century unfolded in a ragged ravine on the outskirts of Nazi-occupied Kyiv.
3/14A Nazi propaganda poster declaring "death to the Jewish-Bolshevik pestilence of murdering." As well as executions at the hands of the Soviet secret police, millions of Ukrainians had died under Stalin in a man-made famine. Nazi propaganda linking Jews with Soviet rule fed the beliefs of some elements of the Ukrainian nationalist movement in a region with a history of anti-Semitic violence.
In the autumn of 1941, one the gravest atrocities of the 20th century unfolded in a ragged ravine on the outskirts of Nazi-occupied Kyiv.
4/14With the active encouragement of the Nazis, horror is unleashed on the Jewish population of the Soviet Ukraine and territories that had been occupied by Soviet forces. This woman is fleeing from a mob in Lviv, a Polish city overtaken by Soviet and then Nazi forces that is today part of western Ukraine -- in June or July 1941. Thousands of Jews were tormented and murdered by mobs of locals during a series of pogroms in Central and Eastern Europe.
In the autumn of 1941, one the gravest atrocities of the 20th century unfolded in a ragged ravine on the outskirts of Nazi-occupied Kyiv.
5/14In Kyiv, time bombs left by retreating Soviet forces exploded, killing several Nazis. A survivor of Babyn Yar recalled that "of course, the Jews were blamed for it. [We] were to blame for everything." On September 26, just a week after capturing Kyiv, the Nazis issued this order, using the derogatory term "yids" for Jews.
"All yidsof the city of Kyiv and its vicinity must appear on Monday, September 29, by 8 o'clock in the morning at the corner of Melnikova and Dorohozhytska streets (near the Viiskove cemetery). Bring documents, money and valuables, and also warm clothing, linens, etc. Any yidswho do not follow this order and are found elsewhere will be shot."
In the autumn of 1941, one the gravest atrocities of the 20th century unfolded in a ragged ravine on the outskirts of Nazi-occupied Kyiv.
6/14As demanded by the orders published in Ukrainian, Russian, and German, some 30,000 Jews from Kyiv and the vicinity arrived on September 29 at various meeting points in the city center. They were then marched northwest to the edge of town to a large ravine known as Babyn Yar or "Old Woman's Ravine." Some of the marchers, nearing a railway yard alongside Babyn Yar, believed they were about to be deported to Palestine.
In the autumn of 1941, one the gravest atrocities of the 20th century unfolded in a ragged ravine on the outskirts of Nazi-occupied Kyiv.
7/14After two years of neutral relations between Nazi Germany and the U.S.S.R., and with information tightly controlled by Soviet media, the Jews of Kyiv have little understanding of the danger they are in.
In the autumn of 1941, one the gravest atrocities of the 20th century unfolded in a ragged ravine on the outskirts of Nazi-occupied Kyiv.
9/14Some of the child victims of the massacre at Babyn Yar. Left to right: Anna Glinberg, Malvina and Polina Babat, and Velvele Valentin Pinkert. One survivor who recalled the events decades later said some locals who had sought to bid farewell to their Jewish neighbors before their "deportation" were also shot dead once they reached the ravine. "It was nothing for [the Nazis] to kill people."
In the autumn of 1941, one the gravest atrocities of the 20th century unfolded in a ragged ravine on the outskirts of Nazi-occupied Kyiv.
10/14Soviet prisoners of war in the ravine after the massacre. Babyn Yar continued to be used by the Nazis as a killing site for Soviet POWs, Roma, and other "undesirables."
In the autumn of 1941, one the gravest atrocities of the 20th century unfolded in a ragged ravine on the outskirts of Nazi-occupied Kyiv.
11/14For more than three decades after the war, the events at Babyn Yar receive little official recognition, although in the 1960s Jewish activists began gathering without permission at the site to keep the memory of what happened there alive. In 1976, this memorial commemorating all victims of the Nazi regime at Babyn Yar was erected, without making specific mention of the Jewish victims. The central figure of the monument is a Soviet soldier.
In the autumn of 1941, one the gravest atrocities of the 20th century unfolded in a ragged ravine on the outskirts of Nazi-occupied Kyiv.
12/14A celebration in Kyiv on May 9, 1985, marking the anniversary of victory over the Nazis. For the authorities of Soviet Ukraine, the events at Babyn Yar were seen through the prism of wholesale Soviet suffering under the Nazis.
In the autumn of 1941, one the gravest atrocities of the 20th century unfolded in a ragged ravine on the outskirts of Nazi-occupied Kyiv.
13/14Fifty years after the massacre, after Ukraine gained independence from the U.S.S.R. in 1991, a separate memorial dedicated to the Jewish victims of the atrocity was unveiled on the site. A crowd of hundreds gathered for the unveiling of the menorah-shaped monument.
In the autumn of 1941, one the gravest atrocities of the 20th century unfolded in a ragged ravine on the outskirts of Nazi-occupied Kyiv.
14/14The menorah monument to Babyn Yar is located today in a quiet park dotted with strolling couples and friends riding bicycles under a canopy of trees.
"There are events, tragedies, the enormity of which make all words futile and of which silence tells incomparably more -- the awesome silence of thousands of people. Perhaps we, too, should keep silent and only meditate. But silence says a lot only when everything that could have been said has already been said. If there is still much to say, or if nothing has yet been said, then silence becomes a partner to falsehood and enslavement. We must, therefore, speak -- and to speak whenever we can, taking advantage of all opportunities, for they come so infrequently."
-- Address made at Babyn Yar by Ukrainian writer Ivan Dzuiba in 1966
In the autumn of 1941, one the gravest atrocities of the 20th century unfolded in a ragged ravine on the outskirts of Nazi-occupied Kyiv.
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But Rivlin cut short his visit to Kyiv due to the death of Israeli statesman Shimon Peres.
On September 27, Rivlin told Ukrainian lawmakers that "many of the crimes were committed by Ukrainians," particularly members of the paramilitary Ukrainian Insurgent Army, during the Holocaust, which involved the systematic killing of some 6 million Jews across Europe by Nazi Germany.
Based on reporting by AFP
09:2429.9.2016
Here's more on Babi Yar from RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service:
Remembering The Massacre Of Roma At Babi Yar
It's been 75 years since more than 100,000 people were killed in a series of massacres by Nazi soldiers at Babi Yar, in Ukraine. Many of the victims were Jewish, but non-Jews were also murdered -- including many Roma. It's a source of intense, ongoing pain for Raisa Nabaranchuk, who lost her grandmother in the massacres.
![In Kyiv, time bombs left by retreating Soviet forces exploded, killing several Nazis. A survivor of Babyn Yar recalled that "of course, the Jews were blamed for it. [We] were to blame for everything." On September 26, just a week after capturing Kyiv, the Nazis issued this order, using the derogatory term "yids" for Jews.<br />
<br />
<em>"All yids<span style="font-size: 12.5px;"> </span>of the city of Kyiv and its vicinity must appear on Monday, September 29, by 8 o'clock in the morning at the corner of Melnikova and Dorohozhytska streets (near the Viiskove cemetery). Bring documents, money and valuables, and also warm clothing, linens, etc. Any yids<span style="font-size: 12.5px;"> </span>who do not follow this order and are found elsewhere will be shot."</em><br />
](https://gdb.rferl.org/90cb1308-cf7f-4697-a4d5-7f097e5b5689_w1024_q10_s.jpg)
![Some of the child victims of the massacre at Babyn Yar. Left to right: Anna Glinberg, Malvina and Polina Babat, and Velvele Valentin Pinkert. One survivor who recalled the events decades later said some locals who had sought to bid farewell to their Jewish neighbors before their "deportation" <strong><a href="https://youtu.be/7f7aQ_UJER0?t=370" target="_blank">were also shot dead</a></strong> once they reached the ravine. "It was nothing for [the Nazis] to kill people."](https://gdb.rferl.org/7a28bd3a-24ec-44c9-8766-8baad5202685_w1024_q10_s.jpg)
