We are now closing the live blog for today but, before we go, we'll leave you with one last update from our news desk. (Don't forget that, until we resume again tomorrow, you can catch up with all our ongoing Ukraine coverage here.)
President Petro Poroshenko has signed into law legislation banning Soviet symbols and communist-era propaganda in Ukraine.
Poroshenko's office made the announcement on May 15.
Under the legislation, the communist government that ruled between 1917 and 1991 is condemned as a criminal regime.
Its symbols and propaganda are banned -- a measure that would require the demolition of monuments to Bolshevik Revolution leader Vladimir Lenin and other Soviet-era icons that remain.
The legislation applies the same treatment to the Nazi regime, which occupied and controlled much of Ukraine during World War II.
The measures drew strong Russian criticism when they were approved by parliament in April.
They are part of a shift away Soviet imagery, which Kyiv says the Kremlin is using to influence neighbors and promote self-serving myths about World War II amid the conflict in eastern Ukraine.
Ukraine is deeply at odds with Russia over its annexation of Crimea and support for separatists in a conflict that has killed more than 6,000 people.
(TASS, Interfax, and AFP)
Good Morning. We'll start the live blog today with a couple of Ukraine-related tweets.
Here's some info on a defense bill passed by the U.S. House that could have reverberations in Kyiv:
Some more Bellingcat reporting on MH17:
This NYT piece on Russia and the West in the light of the Ukraine crisis has been getting a lot of Twitter traction:
And then there's this: