Here is today's map of the latest military situation in the Donbas region, issued by Ukraine's Defense Ministry (click image to enlarge):
Some more Riga-related info from our news desk:
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said the crisis in Ukraine makes the European Union's partnership with six eastern countries "more important than ever."
Merkel was speaking to the German parliament on May 21 ahead of a two-day summit of the 28-nation EU with Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine in the Latvian capital, Riga.
Merkel told the Bundestag that Europe's peaceful order had been shaken by Russia's "illegal annexation" of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in March 2014 and continued fighting between government forces and pro-Russian separatists in the country’s east.
"We will further support our eastern neighbors on their path to a society based on democracy and the rule of law," the chancellor said.
Addressing concerns that the partnership could result in a bitter rivalry between the EU and Russia, Merkel said, "The eastern partnership is not an instrument of EU expansion."
"We must not therefore arouse false expectations which we cannot later fulfil," she added.
Merkel insisted that the initiative was "not aimed against anyone, especially not against Russia."
(Reuters, AFP, AP)
In today's Daily Vertical, Brian Whitmore talks about the rapid rise and demise of Novorossia:
