Good morning. We'll get the live blog rolling today with a couple of items filed overnight by our news desk:
Hungary Vetoes NATO Statement On Ukraine Over Kyiv's Education, Language Laws
Hungarian officials have vetoed a joint NATO statement about Ukraine because it didn’t contain language criticizing Kyiv for its education and language laws that Budapest says deprive the rights of the Hungarian minority in the neighboring country.
Hungary, in particular, believes the country's education law restricts the right of Ukraine's ethnic Hungarian minority of approximately 125,000 people to be educated in their native language.
Kyiv passed the law in 2017, which emphasizes the teaching of Ukrainian in publicly-funded schools and curtails the teaching of Russian and other minority languages, such as Romanian and Hungarian.
It doesn’t forbid pupils from seeking further language study in their native language at private institutions or through other avenues, such as self-organized groups or home tutoring.
Kyiv maintains that the law is meant to ensure that all Ukrainian citizens can speak the state's official language, and it denies the law is discriminatory.
The ongoing spat has prompted Budapest to previously block all meetings of the NATO-Ukraine Commission -- the key format for bilateral cooperation between Kyiv and the Western military alliance -- at all levels above that of ambassadors.
In June, Brussels dropped criticism of the educational law, pushed mostly by Hungary, at the yearly EU-Ukraine summit.
The NATO-Ukraine Commission has also reconvened with the alliance’s leadership currently on a two-day visit to Ukraine that ends on October 31.
Still, Hungary says that changes to the education and language laws hamper minority rights and Prime Minister Viktor Orban's government has chided Kyiv for not allowing ethnic Hungarians there to hold dual citizenship.
A Hungarian consul in the westernmost Ukrainian region, Zakarpattya, where most ethnic Hungarians reside, was expelled in October 2018 after video emerged showing the diplomat issuing Hungarian passports at a citizenship swearing-in ceremony.
Ukraine doesn’t allow dual citizenship.
Meanwhile, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto dismissed criticism that Hungary’s relationship with Russia is uncomfortably friendly as Russian President Vladimir Putin was meeting with Orban in Buda Castle on October 30.
"These are laughable insults on [the] part of our Western friends," Szijjarto said, as cited by the Associated Press.
Orban followed up on the minister's comments, saying that the NATO statement was still being finalized so that it includes at his behest clauses that state Ukraine should adopt changes recommended to the disputed laws by the Venice Commission and legal experts for the Council of Europe, the continent's top human rights body.
Ukrainian Lawmaker In Zelenskiy's Party Apologizes For Online Chat With Sex Worker In Parliament
A lawmaker in Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s ruling Servant of the People party has apologized for browsing the profiles of women who offer sexual services for money and chatting with them on dating sites during a plenary parliamentary session.
In a Facebook post on October 30, Bohdan Yaremenko, who is married with a son and daughter, said he exercised poor judgment and that he deleted a previous post where he said pictures and video footage of him using dating applications on his mobile phone were "fabricated."
"Not all decisions are equally successful," Yaremenko, 48, said. "I want to apologize to all whom I’ve caused problems with my ill-advised actions: from my wife to the [parliamentary] faction and the president."
Images appeared online on October 30 showing the lawmaker browsing profiles of women on the Mamba and Loveeto dating sites.
During a voting session, Yaremenko was shown reading the profile of a 32-year-old woman who had outlined conditions for a paid-for tryst.
Later, he starts chatting with a woman asking about the parameters for a meeting. In response, the woman names a dollar amount per hour for having sexual intercourse.
Later on the same day, Yaremenko, who heads parliament’s foreign policy and inter-parliamentary cooperation committee, was shown browsing Tinder, another dating site.
A former diplomat, Yaremenko was dismissed as the consul-general in Turkey in late 2013 after he criticized the actions of riot police for using excessive force to disperse a group of protesters on November 30, 2013 in what was the first day of the pro-democratic Maidan movement.
Based on reporting by Liga.net, Hromadske, Ukrayinska Pravda, and Bykvu
Russia, of course, was kicked out of the group because of its actions in Ukraine...
Another item from our news desk:
NATO Chief Demands Russia Get Out Of Eastern Ukraine, Stop Supporting Separatists
KYIV -- NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has demanded that Russia end its support for separatists in eastern Ukraine and called on it to withdraw all Russian forces from Ukrainian territory.
Speaking at a press conference in Kyiv on October 31 after talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Stoltenberg also said Moscow must return three Ukrainian Navy vessels that its forces seized in the Kerch Strait off the coast of the Crimean Peninsula last November.
"NATO supports Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity and does not recognize the annexation of Crimea by Russia," Stoltenberg said. "Russia must end supporting separatists in east Ukraine."
"Russia should remove its troops and equipment from Ukrainian territory," Stoltenberg told the press conference.
Military Exercises
Standing beside Zelenskiy following a meeting of the Ukraine-NATO Commission on October 31, Stoltenberg said NATO plans to increase its support for Ukraine in the Black Sea by staging military exercises in the region.
Russia maintains that the Ukrainian Navy ships its forces seized in the Kerch Strait were in Russian territorial waters at the time. But that claim has been rejected by the Hamburg-based International Tribunal for the Law of The Sea
Earlier on October 31, Stoltenberg met with the Ukrainian president in Kyiv for talks that, according to Zelenskiy's office, involved "a narrow circle" of NATO and Ukrainian officials.
Stoltenberg said that peace agreements aimed at resolving the ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine between Russia-backed separatists and Ukrainian government forces must be implemented by all sides.
He said that NATO supported Zelenskiy's efforts to peacefully resolve the conflict, adding that NATO was assisting Ukraine in order to strengthen its defense institutions and its armed forces.
But he said Ukraine needs to continue implementing reforms to secure the country's security and to ensure its future membership in NATO.
Zelenskiy said Ukraine was "ready for shifting to a new level," and joining NATO's Enhanced Opportunity Program.
The Ukrainian president also expressed hope that cooperation between NATO and Kyiv "will deepen to strengthen our defense capabilities."
Stoltenberg was scheduled to speak at the Ukrainian parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, later on October 31.
The NATO chief's visit to Ukraine comes just a few days after Ukraine and Russia-backed separatists began withdrawing weaponry from frontline areas in eastern Ukraine.
The disengagement is seen as a crucial step before long-awaited peace talks between the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, France, and Germany aimed at bringing an end to the 5 1/2-year-old war in eastern Ukraine.
Zelenskiy said Ukraine plans to begin its next stage of withdrawing troops from the front lines in eastern Ukraine on November 4 near the town of Petrivske.
With reporting by Reuters, AP, and AFP
RFE/RL spoke to Acting U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Philip Reeker, who said the citizens of both Russia and Ukraine are "paying a price" for Russia's "malign influence."
