Reuters video on the gradual cleanup in the village of Semenivka, outside Slovyansk. Emergency worker says it may take up to two months to clear the village of landmines.
National Security and Defense Council spokesman Andriy Lysenko says Ukrainian border guards reported the brief presence of six Russian helicopters just inside Ukrainian airspace. Lysenko said Ukrainian mortar positions and ammunition were reinforced after the helicopters were spotted, apparently making demonstrative flights.
Council chairman Andriy Parubiy says that any aircraft illegally entering Ukrainian airspace will be destroyed.
Separatist poetry recovered from the Slovyansk City Hall (translation below):
They rushed
To the city police headquarters,
Shooting at people as they went.
They burned the station to the ground.
The siege was long.
Gunpowder filled the air.
Slavyansk was shelled from all sides
But it wasn't broken.
Strelkov's Russian warriors of steel
Everyone knows – they're our guys
Fighting the unholy vermin.
These boys are heroes.
Destroy, shoot, and kill
Those Banderite Right-Sector queers
And other such homos.
Make them stop stinking up the air.
Drive them to the Polish border.
And to make their way smoother,
"Introduce" sanctions "deep" into them.
Root out the fascists
Because they've crushed so many fates
And crippled so many lives.
From our news desk:
A Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman has said expanding EU sanctions over the Ukraine crisis would be an "unfriendly move" that would affect bilateral cooperation between Moscow and Brussels.
EU diplomats on July 10 said the European Union had agreed to add 11 new names to the list of people targeted by assets freezes and travel bans.
The new sanctions reportedly target mainly separatist leaders in eastern Ukraine.
The Ukrainian military said on July 10 that three Ukrainian soldiers have been killed and 27 injured in fighting against pro-Russian separatists since July 9.
The Russian, German, and French leaders in a telephone call on July 10 called for a new cease-fire.
The office of the French president said Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel told Russian President Vladimir Putin it was important to prevent separatist fighters and weapons from crossing the border into Ukraine from Russia. (Reuters, UNIAN, and Interfax)
Tourist season doesn't seem to be hopping in Crimea today:
Communists in Kharkiv call for an end to the Ukrainian operation against the pro-Russian separatists in the east:
From our news desk:
Moscow says a Russian checkpoint on the border with Ukraine was fired on by the Ukrainian military, which is fighting separatists in the east of the country.
Russia's Foreign Ministry in a July 10 statement voiced "strong protest" and demanded "an end to the shelling of Russian territory."
The statement said it was not the first time the border post at Gukovo had come under fire.
Meanwhile, on July 10, Ukrainian military spokesman Vladyslav Seleznyov said government forces retook control of the town of Siversk, to the east of Slovyansk, after separatists fled.
The pro-Russian separatists said there was no sense in holding Siversk because of the risk of being encircled.
Seleznyov also said that government forces guarding Donetsk's main airport came under mortar fire on July 10.
He said the separatist attack was repelled. (Reuters and UNIAN)