Another update from RFE/RL's news desk:
Nine civilians have been reported killed in fresh fighting between government forces and pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine today, as international experts continued working at the MH17 crash site.
Local officials said six people were killed in shelling and gunfire near Donetsk, and three others were killed in Luhansk over the previous 24 hours.
The Ukrainian military said it had suffered no losses in the latest fighting.
Donetsk and Luhansk are the last two big strongholds of the separatists.
Meanwhile, Dutch and Australian investigators continued working at the site where Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was brought down on July 17, allegedly by the separatists.
The experts are trying to recover the remains of the 298 people killed when the plane crashed.
Some 220 coffins have already been sent to the Netherlands for identification. More remains were delivered in refrigerated trucks to the eastern city of Kharkiv on August 3.
(Reuters, AFP, AP)
Writing for "The Moscow Times," veteran journalist Andrei Malgin has been looking at how the Kremlin has been waging its (dis)information war. It makes for pretty depressing reading:
I worked for Soviet newspapers during the terms of four Soviet leaders, from Leonid Brezhnev to Mikhail Gorbachev, and this is the first time the authorities have lied so brazenly and shamelessly. They have truly reached a new low.
Here is an indisputable fact: A passenger plane was shot down over territory controlled by pro-Russian separatists. Everyone understands that it was a mistake and not an intentional act, and the separatists could have admitted as much.
In a similar situation, when Soviet forces mistakenly shot down a South Korean airliner in 1983, Soviet media did not deny the incident but focused all its propaganda efforts on explaining the context of how it happened, claiming, for example, that the South Korean crew had "provocatively changed course."
This time the Kremlin-controlled media has repeatedly claimed that: the airplane was not shot down at all, but fell out of the sky by itself; a bomb exploded aboard the airplane; the airplane was hit by a Ukrainian missile fired from the ground; a Ukrainian air force fighter pursued and then attacked the plane; the U.S. shot down the plane in order to damage Russia's reputation; no living people were aboard the plane as it flew on autopilot from Amsterdam, where it had been pre-loaded with "rotting corpses."
Difficult as it is to believe, that last, completely ridiculous version of events, which was put forward by Igor Girkin, the commander of the pro-Russian terrorists responsible for the tragedy, not only aired on all state-controlled media outlets, but was the subject of serious discussion.
Read the entire article here
Everything Is Illuminated? Some rules for media issued by separatists in the east. Jonathan Safran Foer could not have put it better:
Regeln der Separatisten für Berichterstattung über Kampfhandlungen in der Ost-#Ukraine pic.twitter.com/dcVbSN9c0o
— Dirk Emmerich (@DEmmerich) August 3, 2014
RFE/RL's news desk has issued this update on the situation around the MH17 crash site:
Body parts found by international investigators at the crash site of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 in eastern Ukraine have been delivered to the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.
Four refrigerated trucks carrying remains and personal belongings arrived in Kharkiv in the early hours of August 3.
Some 70 Dutch and Australian investigators are continuing to search an area of some 20 square kilometers.
All 298 people on board the plane died in the July 17 crash. More than 220 coffins have been sent back to the Netherlands.
The situation remains tense in the area, where neither pro-Russian rebels nor Ukrainian forces are in full control.
Local officials said on August 3 that nine civilians were killed in fresh fighting around the cities of Donetsk and Luhansk in east Ukraine.
The Ukrainian military said it had suffered no losses in the latest fighting.
(AP, Reuters, and Interfax)
Sloviansk "mayor" Ponomaryov surfaced in a Moscow TV studio“@lifenews_ru: Пономарев: "Боинг" сбили украинские войска pic.twitter.com/TeTEjlMEKt”
— Leonid Ragozin (@leonidragozin) August 3, 2014
11 Ukrainian paratroops still missing after being ambushed near Shahtorsk on 1 August
— bruce springnote (@BSpringnote) August 3, 2014
NYT-piece on separatists' brutality in #Slovyansk; a legacy of violent thuggery that alienated just about everyone. http://t.co/Tt1Kska93R
— A von Beckerath (@vBeckerath) August 3, 2014
My latest #Ukraine dispatch, incl interviews with Right Sector leader #Yarosh & other key warlords from both sides: http://t.co/H8NWH9TtX4
— Bojan Pancevski (@bopanc) August 3, 2014
Here's a "Novaya Gazeta" photo gallery of a rally held in Moscow yesterday, calling on Russia to send troops into eastern Ukraine. It doesn't seem to have been a massive turnout:
В Москве прошел митинг за ввод российских войск на Донбасс. Фоторепортаж Евгения Фельдмана http://t.co/ZlEuymbWGy pic.twitter.com/Hbtq2MjVlA
— Новая Газета (@novaya_gazeta) August 2, 2014
While war rumbles 2km away, life in Schastye is slowly getting back to normality. Town has electricity and water, but many are hungry
— Oliver Carroll (@olliecarroll) August 3, 2014