The referendum's results were a clear victory of the "NO" party (about 61% versus 39% "YES"), and the voter turnout has been 32,2%, above the 30% required for the vote to be considered valid.

Quick considerations:

1. Don't be disappointed (if you hoped for a "yes") or too happy (if you supported "no"): the referendum will ultimately be ignored, as it's not uncommon in our democracies.
2. The association agreement is already in force.
3. It's the first time that the agreement has been submitted to a popular vote.
4. Although most of the EU citizens have heard of this agreement only recently, there have been talks about it since at least 2011.
5. Since the beginning these talks have had a destabilizing effect on Ukraine, a country deeply divided into a western pro-EU part and an eastern pro-Russia part.
6. Yes, we are talking about the same association agreement whose rejection by Viktor Janukovych was the cause (or pretext, if you like) for the 2013 Maidan revolution, which then degenerated into a civil war.
7. On one hand, one can feel disappointed at the referendum results, and see them as if the EU has fueled the divisions in Ukraine and now has abandoned it; on the other hand, in 2013 most of these voters were totally unaware of the agreement and of the delicate situation of Ukraine — their opinion was not asked back then.
8. Ukraine will eventually join the EU, it's just inevitable. Sooner or later, either the full Ukraine or its western regions will enter the EU (unless, of course, the EU disintegrates before that).

(note for English readers: find the text too boring? Here's the direct link to the English version of the documentary)

"Le stagioni del Donbass" es un film documentario realisate per Sara Reginella pro monstrar al audientia occidental un parte de veritate que es quasi complementemente absente de nostre medios de information.
Le imagines es accompaniate per intervistas al scriptor Nikolai Lilin, al studioso Eliseo Bertolasi e al disegnator Vauro Senesi. Si vos non ha le tempore pro reguardar tote le documentario (que dura circa un hora) io recommenda que vos reguarda al minus le ultime parte, que initia al minuto 43:16:

Il ha anque un version anglese e un version in russo.

Infortunatemente, benque io trova que le documentario es multo ben facite, io debe constatar que il ha un breve (e non significative) parte ubi le journalismo lassa spatio al sensationalismo: il ha un testimoniantia de un femina que reporta del terribile torturas que le soldatos del battalion Azov inflige al feminas — ben, il es obvie que le episodios reportate es non verificabile, e quasi certemente inventate pro scopos propagandistic. Benque il es clar que Sara Reginella non es culpabile de haber falsificate iste testimoniantia, le manco de criticitate que illa demonstra in presentar iste testimoniantia es un parve macula super un labor que es alteremente laudabile.

The United Nations Human Rights Council has released a report about the situation in Ukraine, based on data collected from August to November, 2015.
It contains a lot of interesting data — whether their report is biased, that's a different matter; but I do believe that they wouldn't lie on raw data —, some of which I'm sure the Western press is going to ignore. I want to focus just on one particular aspect, for the time being.

Who is striking civilian areas?

Of course, we all know that both sides are using low-precision weapons, and civilians are getting hit as a result. But it would also be unfair to put everyone on the same basket, without having a look at the numbers. On page 6, the report tells us:

27. On the Government-controlled territories, 87 civilian casualties (24 deaths and 63 injured) were recorded. The 24 fatalities included 22 adults and two children. Of 63 injured: 57 were adults and six were children.

28. In the territories controlled by the ‘Donetsk people’s republic’ and ‘Luhansk people’s republic’, 91 civilian casualties (23 deaths and 68 injured) were recorded. Of 23 killed: 22 were adults and one was a child. Of 68 injured: 64 were adults and four were children.

	Government forces	Rebels
Shelling	52	18
Mines and unexploded bombs	58	35
Road incidents (drunken driving)	4	0
Total	114	53

I've read many pieces of news about the downing of the Russian Su-24 jet in Syria, but they all left one question unanswered: why did this happen?
Of course, I'm looking for the real answer: that Turkey did it in order to protect its borders is pure nonsense, since the airspace violation — if it happened — lasted just 17 seconds and was clearly due to a manoeuvre which posed no threat at all to Turkey. We also need to remember that Turkey has (well, had, by now) lots of economic ties with Russia, and wouldn't have run the risk of ruining them just to make a point about its borders' inviolability.
Also, if you look at this situation from abroad, it's an act that makes really little sense: first of all, it destroys the good relations with Russia, but also won't appear very wise even from a Western World's standpoint: while NATO defended Turkey's actions, I saw little enthusiasm in doing that. The Western public opinion was kind of shocked by the incident, and not unanimously supportive of it. No matter from which angle you look at it, from a foreign policy point of view this action was a political disaster.

So Turkey could have done this for some reasons linked to its internal politics. One explanation could be that this was an attempt to divert the Turkish public attention from some internal issue, present or coming in the immediate future. It's quite convenient to find or create foreign enemies, when you want to focus attention away from some internal trouble (and incidentally, that's why the Ukrainian government is in no hurry to implement the reforms planned in the Minsk agreements: corruption and economic crisis would take the place of the conflict in the news), so this could be in some way a diversion. However, not knowing much about the current economic situation in Turkey, I'll let others speculate on this.

But there is another, and so far mostly overlooked, possible reason for the shooting of the Russian Su-24, which might sound absurd at first: that this is a peace message to ISIS and to other terrorist groups operating in Syria. The key point here is that Turkey is carrying the heaviest weight in terms of Syrian refugees, as according to recent estimates it's thought to give shelter to more than two million Syrians. Of course, this is such a large number that it would be just too naïve to believe that there are no terrorists or jihadists among them. In fact, Ankara has already been hit by a terrorist attack on October 10th which claimed 102 lives and which is widely believed to be staged by ISIS.
Now, there are a handful of recent events that have happened in Syria and that could be of some importance to us:

• Russian airstrikes since the beginning of October
• Military advanced of the Syrian army against ISIS and other rebel groups
• Russian airstrikes hitting ISIS oil and arms traffic in the last couple of weeks