Big decisions ahead today for Ukrainian officials, it would seem. This is a summary from our newsroom:
Ukraine's Poroshenko To Meet With Security Chiefs
TASS quotes a Russian official as saying more "aid" trucks have crossed the border into Ukraine. It is unclear what the vehicles are carrying -- as has been the case with other shipments Russia has characterized as "humanitarian" missions -- or which border checkpoints the vehicles used.
All trucks with relief supplies for troubled south-eastern Ukrainian cities of Lugansk and Donetsk have crossed Russian-Ukrainian border, deputy chief of Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations national centre of management in emergency situations Oleg Voronov told TASS.
"A relief aid convoy of 20 trucks was divided in two parts and after passing customs clearance 10 trucks went to Donetsk and the same number of trucks to Lugansk," he said.
That concludes our live blogging for Monday, November 3. You can follow our continuing coverage of events in Ukraine and throughout our region HERE.
Here's our wrap-up of a very busy day in Ukraine, culminating in angry words for pro-Russian separatists, and indeed Moscow, from Ukraine's president.
Kyiv Rethinks Strategy In East In Wake Of Rebel Votes
More from Poroshenko's Twitter feed, in case the world missed the message:
Interfax carries the response to President Poroshenko's statement by the self-styled leaders of the breakaway Donetsk and Luhansk "people's republics." The demand for talks on "an equitable basis" and the insistence that the hastily cobbled-together votes were legitimate are likely to be problematic, for starters. But mostly, it appears aimed at trying to rebuff Poroshenko's suggestion that separatist-held areas risk losing special status granted them by Ukrainian authorities. Here's the whole story from Interfax:
The self-declared Donetsk and Luhansk people's republics have announced that they are ready to continue the dialogue with Kyiv, but exclusively on an equitable basis.
"Kyiv will have to take note of the opinion of the people of Donbas, whether it likes it or not. No political or legal tricks will work here. No acts which Ukraine will adopt unilaterally, without the consent of the newly elected authorities of the Donetsk and Luhansk people's republics, will be enforced in our territory," says a joint statement, signed by deputy head of the government of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic Purgin and chairman of the Supreme Council of the self-declared Luhansk People's Republic Karyakin.
"The Donetsk and Luhansk people's republics are open for further dialogue, but this dialogue must proceed on an equitable basis," the statement says.
The statement also says that the elections in the people's republics were held in compliance with the Minsk accords "within the timeframe set and in accordance with the procedure agreed upon by representatives of the republics, Russia and Ukraine."
But Ukraine violated the agreements, misrepresenting the agreed resolution on the law on the special status of Donbas, it says.
"Since this law knowingly omitted the territories to which this status applies, the law has never taken effect. In fact it is legally null and void. It will have to be edited, or annulled as a senseless act, whose sole purpose is to mislead the world public," the statement says.
On September 1 representatives of the two republics informed the Kyiv leadership in Minsk about their negotiating positions, with the terms of the settlement listed, it says.
"First, we demanded that Ukraine recognize the special status of the territories controlled by the people's republics, and create conditions - first of all end the military operation - for free elections of the republic's heads and parliaments on the basis of the principles of independent democratic self-government," the statement says.
"We pledged - if Ukraine fulfils our demands - to apply maximum effort, as required by Point 8 of the negotiating positions, to maintain peace and to save the single economic, cultural and political space in Ukraine and the entire space of Russian-Ukrainian civilization," it says.
"We reaffirm our commitments and are saying again to the Kyiv leadership that they accepted our terms and must implement them in full," the statement says.