Absolute devastation at Luhansk airport:
Good morning, starting the live blog for another day with the news that Donestsk might fall today. From our news desk:
A Ukrainian military spokesman says government forces are preparing for the final stage of recapturing the city of Donetsk from pro-Russian separatists.
Andriy Lysenko told Reuters that Kyiv's forces had now cut Donetsk off from the other main separatist-held city of Luhansk in the east.
Ukrainian media reports, citing residents, said Donetsk came under renewed shelling on August 11.
Meanwhile, Dmytro Tymchuk, a military expert reporting extensively on Ukraine, said at least two Ukrainian government checkpoints came under fire from across the Russian border on August 11.
Tymchuk said an ambulance evacuating the wounded from one of the checkpoints also came under fire, with an unspecified number of casualties.
Tymchuk also reports the separatists fired Grad missiles at the Luhansk airport. There were no reports of injuries in that incident.
That concludes our live blogging for today. Follow our continued coverage of Ukraine and all our broadcast region HERE.
As we conclude our live blogging for today, here's today's map from the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council's information center:
Hard to say who comes out a winner in this cultural exchange.
The spokesman for the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council, Andriy Lysenko, has confirmed that the only way authorities will accept a cease-fire in the torrid fighting in Donetsk is if the separatists "lay down their arms and give up," AP reports. Lysenko added: "If white flags come up and they lay down their arms, nobody is going to shoot at them," he said. "[But] we have not seen any practical steps yet, just a statement."
AFP just issued the very moving story "Giving Birth Under Fire In A Donetsk Hospital Cellar." It begins:
Just a pink cap was visible as Larisa held her daughter Yeva swathed in a blanket on Sunday, sitting in the cellar of Donetsk's largest maternity hospital, where she gave birth days ago amid heavy shelling.
As mortar fire continued to rain down on the centre of the rebel-held city, dozens of women huddled in this cellar, sitting on benches along the walls of the corridor, many pregnant or holding newly born babies.
"I gave birth here on August 7th, right in the corridor," said Larisa, dressed in a nightgown decorated with hearts, as her mother held a bottle of milk for the sleeping baby.
In between periods of shelling, the patients went back up to the wards, but "every time the baby calms down, we have to come down here again," she said.
"I can't believe we have got to this point: giving birth in a cellar," added her mother, Yekaterina Petrovna, angry tears in her eyes.
"Why should we experience this? Waiting for our deaths? No one hears us."
We have not seen confirmation of this report from a more credible source, but will pass along this ITAR-TASS piece that cites the separatist "local news agency Novorossiya." Bezler (aka The Demon) could certainly do with some good PR, at this point.
Self-defense fighters attacked a Ukrainian army convoy near east Ukraine's Donetsk, destroying over 20 pieces of the armor, the local news agency Novorossiya said on Sunday.
The battle started on Saturday night when a militia group led by commander Igor Bezler attacked a Ukrainian military convoy on the Donetsk-Horlivka highway, the agency said.
Preliminary data show that over 20 pieces of the armor, including three tanks, were destroyed, Novorossiya said.