Good morning. We'll start the live blog this week with an item that was filed overnight by our news desk in Washington:
Head Of Ukraine State Import-Export Bank Arrested On Money-Laundering Charges
Officers of Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) have arrested the chairman of the state-owned Ukreximbank, Oleksandr Hrytsenko, on suspicion of creating an organized crime group, embezzlement, and money laundering.
SBU spokeswoman Olena Hitlyanska said on November 16 that the suspect was being held in a temporary detention center on charges that involve complicity in laundering stolen assets connected to the inner circle of former President Viktor Yanukovych.
The banker's lawyer, Denys Halanskiy, said the following day that his client was being punished for going after assets linked with the former president's entourage.
The 78-page indictment says Hrytsenko, who has headed the bank since August 2014, allegedly took part in unfreezing assets belonging to the media empire of the former president's reputed moneybag man, Serhiy Kurchenko, the UNIAN news agency reported.
Ukrainian Media Holding (UMH) once published the most widely-circulated weekly news magazine in the country and had rights to publish the Russian-language versions of Forbes and Vogue in Ukraine.
Kurchenko and Yanukovych fled to Russia in February 2014 in the wake of the pro-democracy Maidan movement.
A trained lawyer, Kurchenko had bought UMH in 2013 partly with a loan from Ukreximbank.
Ukreximbank is Ukraine’s third-largest bank with more than $7 billion in assets, according to the central bank.
Meanwhile, another bank chairman, Oleksandr Pysaruk of the Austrian-owned Ukrainian unit of Raiffeisen Bank, was released on bail on November 15.
He is suspected of participating in a $49 million embezzlement scheme during a bank bailout in 2015 when serving as the deputy chairman of the National Bank of Ukraine, the country's central bank.
His current employer posted the $208,000 bail and Pysaruk has returned to work.
Pysaruk, also a former employee of the International Monetary Fund for nearly three years, "will continue to serve as chairman of the board of Raiffeisen Bank Aval," said Raiffeisen Bank International Chief Financial Officer Martin Gruhl from Vienna. "We are all convinced that all suspicions of misconduct will be lifted from Mr. Pysaruk in the near future..."
Based on reporting by RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service, UNIAN, Interfax, Novoye Vremya, Pryamiy Kanal, Ukrayinska Pravda, and Ukrinform
This ends our live blogging for November 17. Be sure to check back tomorrow for our continuing coverage.
FSB confirms Moscow to hand over Ukrainian ships "within 24 hours":
By the Crimea Desk of RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service
Russia plans to return three seized Ukrainian naval vessels sometime within the next 24 hours, the press service of the border-security unit of the Federal Security Service (FSB) told Interfax.
The three ships could be seen early on November 17 being towed off the eastern coast of the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, accompanied by Russian naval vessels.
Interfax's FSB source said the handover would take place in neutral waters in the Black Sea.
A Ukrainian source told Kerch FM radio that the handover would take place off the coast of the Crimean town of Alupka.
The ships -- two small armored vessels and a tug boat -- were seized by Russia off the coast of Crimea in November 2018.
Moscow, whose 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine has gone largely unrecognized around the world, alleged that the ships had illegally entered its territorial waters.
Ukraine denied that.
In September, Russia returned the 24 captured sailors as part of a prisoner exchange deal with Kyiv.
The moves followed comments a day earlier by Andriy Yermak, a top aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who said the turnover of the ships was under way.
"The process of returning the...ships seized in November has entered its final stage," Yermak was quoted by Novoye vremya as saying.
Since his election this spring, Zelenskiy has moved quickly to find a way to try and end the conflict with Moscow.
Now in its sixth year, the fighting between Russia-backed separatist formations and Ukrainian government forces has killed more than 13,000 people in eastern Ukraine.
Next month, the leaders of Germany, France, Ukraine, and Russia will meet in Paris in an effort to find a resolution to the conflict. (w/Novoye vremya, Kommersant, dpa, and Interfax)