Here is today's map of the latest situation in the Donbas conflict zone, according to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry:
A report about separatists in the Donbas region dying from drug overdoses:
From the RFE/RL news desk:
A court in Russia has sentenced a Ukrainian citizen to 12 years in prison on terrorism charges.
The North Caucasus Regional Court on July 31 found Oleksiy Syzonovych guilty of planning a terrorist attack, illegal border crossing, and illegal possession of explosives. It issued the sentence the same day.
Investigators have said that Syzonovych traveled to the town of Kamensk-Shakhtinsky in Russia's Rostov region, where he took pictures of a local railway station in connection with an alleged plan for an attack in September.
Rights activists say Russia has jailed several Ukrainians on trumped up, politically motivated charges since Moscow seized Ukraine's Crimea region in March 2014.
In March, the European Parliament called on Russia to free more than 30 Ukrainian citizens who were in prison or other conditions of restricted freedom in Russia, Crimea, and parts of eastern Ukraine that are controlled by Russia-backed separatists.
The list included filmmaker Oleh Sentsov, who is serving a 20-year sentence in Russian prison after being convicted of plotting terrorist attacks in a trial supporters called absurd, and reporter Roman Sushchenko, held in Moscow on suspicion of espionage.
The list, which the parliament statement said was not complete, also included several leaders of the Crimean Tatar minority, which rights groups say has faced abuse and discrimination since Russia's takeover.
Based on reporting by TASS, Interfax, and Ukrayinska Pravda
Echoes of a deceased federation (Tatarstan):
An explosion on a firing range has left casualties among Ukrainian soldiers: