Here's an item from RFE/RL Washington correspondent Todd Prince:

U.S. Lawyer Spent Nearly $100,000 To Boost Zelenskiy's Image In Washington

WASHINGTON -- An American attorney spent nearly $100,000 out of his own pocket to boost the profile of Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Washington shortly before -- and after -- he won the Ukrainian presidency in a landslide.

Marcus Cohen spent more than $23,000 on travel, lodging, and food and he shuttled between Washington and Kyiv over a four-month period, according to an October 2 Justice Department foreign-agent filing.

He also paid nearly $70,000 to a lobby firm that organized three days of meetings for him and Zelenskiy campaign members in Washington with State Department officials, think-tank analysts, former congressmen, as well as Donald Trump’s former spokesman Sean Spicer and former campaign staffer Matthew Mowers.

Cohen said in the filing that his work for the Zelenskiy campaign and later administration was not based on any formal written contract -- as is often the case with lobbying efforts -- or verbal agreement.

The attorney "engaged in efforts for the benefit of the Principal on his own initiative, he received no compensation for those efforts, and his collaborations with the Principal resulted from informal understandings that developed on an instance-by-instance basis," the filing said.

The Principal is listed on the filing as "Volodymyr Zelenskiy -- Servant of the People [a reference to the Servant of the People Party he founded]," both as candidate and then president of Ukraine.

Cohen "provided internal advice" to Zelenskiy’s team before and after the election "on proposed and actual interactions with the U.S. government as well as on campaign communications," according to the filing. His point of contact in Zelenskiy’s circle was Ivan Bakanov, the campaign's chief of staff who was later appointed head of the nation’s security service.

Bakanov, 45, is also Zelenskiy's former business partner.

Cohen, who spoke with RFE/RL in an exclusive interview in August about this work, made the filing "at the instruction of the Justice Department." His work ended in June, based on the expense report attached to the filing.

Another item from RFE/RL's news desk:

Ukraine Prosecutors Launch Probe Into Saakashvili's Expulsion In 2018

Ukrainian prosecutors have opened a criminal probe into former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili’s deportation from Ukraine in 2018.

The Chief Military Prosecutor’s Office said on October 7 that the investigation was launched after Saakashvili filed a complaint over the "abduction and violent actions against" him and "his illegal" deportation to Poland last year.

In May, Ukraine's new President Volodymyr Zelenskiy reinstated Saakashvili's Ukrainian citizenship almost two years after it was removed by Zelenskiy’s predecessor, Petro Poroshenko.

In February 2018, Saakashvili was detained in Kyiv, taken to the airport, and flown to Poland.

Days later, Ukraine's border service banned Saakashvili from entering Ukraine until February 13, 2021.

Saakashvili was granted Ukrainian citizenship and appointed to the Odesa governor's post by Poroshenko in 2015.

Authorities in Tbilisi stripped Saakashvili of his Georgian citizenship on grounds that Georgia does not allow dual citizenship.

When relations between Poroshenko and Saakashvili soured over reform efforts and the fight against corruption, the Ukrainian president sacked Saakashvili from the governor's post in November 2016.

In July 2017, after Saakashvili created the Movement of New Forces opposition party, Poroshenko issued a decree that stripped Saakashvili of his Ukrainian citizenship.

Based on reporting by 112.international and unian.ua

We are now closing the live blog for today, but we'll be back again tomorrow morning to follow all the latest developments. Until then, you can keep up with all our other Ukraine coverage here.

Former lawmaker detained over shooting:

By RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service

Former Ukrainian member of parliament Serhiy Pashynskiy has been placed in pretrial detention for two months without the opportunity to post bail on charges that he caused "grievous bodily harm" when he shot a man on New Year's Eve in 2016.

A Kyiv court on October 7 ordered the four-term former lawmaker, most recently from the Narodniy Front party, to be held until December 4 as he faces charges that are punishable for up to 10 years in prison.

The charges stem from an incident on December 31, 2016 in outside Kyiv.

According to Pashynskiy, he noticed a vehicle parked on the median of a country road without its headlights on. When he approached the vehicle to ask the passengers to move the van, one of them approached him with a glass bottle while making verbal threats.

Armed with a Glock-19 pistol, Pashynskiy said he fired a warning shot into the air.

After the lawmaker was struck with the glass bottle and fell to the ground, he fired his weapon, wounding the man in the left leg.

Medical examiners said the man suffered a fracture to his left femur.

The shot man, Vyacheslav Khimikus, was charged with the lesser crime of hooliganism in November.

Prosecutors initially closed the case against Pashynskiy, who most recently had headed the parliamentary National Security and Defense Committee, on July 26, 2017 due to a lack of evidence.

In December 2017, a Kyiv court ordered prosecutors to reopen the case.

On October 4, the State Bureau of Investigations charged Pashynskiy with causing grievous bodily harm. (w/Interfax and Ukrayinska Pravda)