That concludes our live-blogging of the Ukraine crisis for March 3, 2019. Check back here tomorrow morning for more of our continuing coverage.
Detained Ukrainian Church Archbishop Released In Crimea, Lawyer Says
Authorities in the Russia-annexed Crimean Peninsula have released the head of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine in the region after briefly detaining him, a Russian lawyer says.
The reason for the arrest on March 3 is not clear.
Archbishop Klyment was detained at a bus station in the Crimean capital of Simferopol, according to a press statement by the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.
Ukrainian Orthodox Archbishop Arrested In Crimea
By Current Time
Russian security officials have detained the head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the Russia-annexed Crimean Peninsula.
The reason for the arrest on March 3 is not clear.
Archbishop Klyment was detained at a bus station in the Crimean capital of Simferopol, Current Time, the Russian-language network led by RFE/RL in cooperation with VOA, reported, citing a press statement by the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.
The church said Klyment was taken to Kyiv’s regional police station.
Klyment confirmed his arrest in a phone call with AFP during which he said he was speaking from a police station in Simferopol.
Police did not tell him why he was being held, he said.
The arrest comes weeks after the Orthodox Church in Ukraine was granted independence, or autocephaly, ending more than 330 years of Russian religious control in Ukraine.
Russia long opposed such efforts by the Ukrainians for an independent church, which intensified after Russia seized Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in March 2014 and began supporting separatists shortly thereafter in parts of Ukraine's eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.
Klyment said last month that Crimean authorities were set to revoke a lease on his church because he failed to register the parish in the Russian Federation.
With reporting by AFP
Here is today's map of the security situation in eastern Ukraine, according to the National Security and Defense Council (CLICK TO ENLARGE):
