From our newsroom:
Four U.S. students have been ordered to leave Russia after authorities there said they had the wrong visas.
The four were attending a two-week leadership conference in St. Petersburg on November 6 when immigration officers and police showed up and demanded to see their visas.
A father of one of the students told the AP news agency they were briefly detained while they were put on trial and fined the equivalent of $110 each.
They were questioned for a total of seven hours, first at their hotel and then at immigration offices.
According to the Tass news agency, Yulia Nikolayeva, a Federal Migration Service representative in St. Petersburg, said the four had come to Russia on tourist visas but the activity they participated in was considered "social-political activity."
The conference was led by the Association of Young Leaders, a Russia-based association that teaches young people leadership skills.
The four flew back to the United States on November 11.
Based on reporting by AP, TASS, and the "San Jose Mercury-News" and TASS
Barring any major developments, that ends the live blogging for today.
The new EU Neighborhood and Enlargement Negotiations Commissioner Johannes Hahn says it is "crystal clear" there won't be a reduction in European Union sanctions on Russia, and that the recent events in eastern Ukraine instead can prompt Brussels to pile further pressure on Russia.
Here is the latest news wrap from our news desk on the OSCE's warning about an escalation of violence.
Here's an item from our news desk on the Savchenko trial in Moscow:
A Moscow court has started a hearing into a complaint filed by Nadiya Savchenko, a Ukrainian air force pilot who is being held in Russia on charges of complicity in the deaths of two Russian journalists in eastern Ukraine.
Savchenko lodged a protest against a psychological examination conducted at a Moscow mental health facility.
The hearing was initially scheduled for October 27 but was postponed until November 11 because she was not brought to the courtroom from the hospital.
Court officials said the hearing was being held behind closed doors because it involves private information about Savchenko's health, court officials said.
Savchenko says she was captured by pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine on June 18 and "illegally transferred" to Russian custody in July.
Investigators have said she was detained in Russia.
Savchenko won a seat in Ukraine's parliament last month.
(TASS, UNIAN)
The first anniversary of the start of the Maidan protests in Kyiv -- November 21, 2013 -- is just around the corner. We've prepared a quiz to help you refresh your memory of those early days, which seem so long ago now:
Quiz: Remembering The Maidan
On the night of November 21, 2013, hundreds of Ukrainians gathered on Kyiv's Independence Square, upset by the government's decision to suspend preparations for an agreement on closer ties with the European Union. How well do you remember the events that sparked the 2014 Ukrainian revolution?
Take the quiz here
A somewhat telling repored comment from Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbaev: