TODAY: Ukraine peace talks underway in Berlin; agreement apparently reached on aid convoy; Ukrainian jet shot down.  More Bolotnaya suspects found guilty; Siberian independence rallies thwarted by police; Kremlin to consider ban on import of Western cars. 

Russian and Ukrainian foreign ministers are currently in Berlin along with German counterpart Frank-Walter-Steinmeier and France’s Laurent Fabius for talks over ending the conflict in eastern Ukraine.  ‘Some progress‘ was noted by the German Foreign Minister.  ‘Five hours of most difficult talks. But we’d need several five-hour [talks] to see any progress‘, tweeted Ukraine’s top diplomat Pavlo Klimkin.  Significantly, the foreign ministers did reach an agreement on the delivery of humanitarian aid, approved by the Red Cross, to southeastern Ukraine.  This comes after a turbulent weekend; on Sunday pro-Russia rebels shot down a Ukrainian MiG-29  fighter jet and at least ten civilians were killed and another eight wounded in the Ukrainian army’s shelling of Donetsk.  On Friday, Ukraine claimed to have destroyed a column of Russian military vehicles in the east.  In a Youtube video Alexander Zakharchenko, Prime Minister of the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic, announced he had 1,200 fighters ‘trained in Russia‘ under his command as well as 30 tanks.  These claims have been denied by the Kremlin.  Ideas propagated by a leading Russian nationalist, ‘have become to an extent practically the principal line of Russian foreign policy‘.