This ends our live-blogging for July 9, please check back tomorrow for continued coverage.
Good morning! Today's live blog begins with an item from our news desk:
-- The European Union will reportedly add 11 new names to the list of persons targeted with asset freezes and travel bans over the Ukraine crisis.
EU diplomatic sources said on July 9 that the decision would be implemented by the end of the week.
Names will be published in the official journal of the European Union in the coming days.
The EU has already imposed asset freezes and travel bans on 61 people and two companies for participating in the separatist rebellion in eastern Ukraine or in Russia's occupation and annexation of the Crimean Peninsula.
On July 9, French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel in a telephone call urged Ukraine's Western-backed President Petro Poroshenko to move toward a political solution.
France said Poroshenko promised to exercise "restraint" in the campaign in eastern Ukraine.
But Poroshenko also said that the situation was aggravated by Russia, as militants continued to receive weapons from across the border.
An EPA photograph of wounded Ukrainian paratroopers Ruslan Yarish (r) and Oleksandr Ponomaryov kissing their brides during joint weddings in the central military hospital in Kyiv on July 9.
Poroshenko: We need to diversify energy sources and make the gas market transparent.
More from our news desk:
-- Three Ukrainian soldiers have been killed and 27 injured in clashes with pro-Russian separatist rebels in the east of the country in the past 24 hours.
The Ukrainian military said one soldier was killed when rebels fired machine guns at a truck carrying soldiers near Luhansk.
Separately, two soldiers were killed when their armored vehicle was blown up by a landmine near Donetsk.
A few days ago we ran a photograph of city workers installing bike racks on a street in Donetsk.
The picture was possibly intended as a sign of normalization. But it's angered many locals, because the racks are located at the site where 22-year-old Svoboda activist Dmytro Chernyavksiy -- now considered one of the "heavenly hundred" -- was stabbed to death during clashes with pro-Russian protesters in March.
"Fontanka.ru" reports that Valentin Vereshchako, the chief of staff for St. Petersburg vice-governor Mikhail Mokretsov, took off his pants and went for a walk on a central city street. He was later hospitalized and reportedly could be heard muttering the word "Luhansk" with alarm.
The latest on Ukrainian pilot Nadiya Savchenko:
-- A court in Russia has remanded a captured Ukrainian military officer in pretrial detention until August 30.
The Voronezh Regional Court's officials say the decision was made on July 2 but only announced July 10.
Russia's Investigative Committee said on July 9 that Nadiya Savchenko, a senior lieutenant in the Ukrainian Air Force, had been indicted in Russia for her alleged complicity in the killing of two Russian journalists.
Two journalists from Russia's State Television and Radio Company, Igor Kornelyuk and Viktor Denisov, were killed near Ukraine's eastern city of Luhansk last month while covering the Ukrainian Army's offensive against pro-Russian separatists.
Ukraine's Foreign Ministry issued a statement on July 8, saying Savchenko had been captured by pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine and "illegally transferred" to Russia.
Russia's Investigative Committee insists Savchenko was detained within Russia.
Hromadske.tv is citing Donetsk journalist Denys Kazan as reporting that separatists from the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic have procured several Ukrainian fighter jets from Crimea:
"They're currently located at the captured Mospino airfield near Donetsk. The terrorists are looking for pilots, and are ready to pay $8,000 per mission, but so far there are no people with such skills among them. Maybe they'll come soon from Russia."