Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has ordered Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin to hold “urgent consultations” with the foreign ministries involved in the Normandy talks (Russia, Germany, France) due to the escalation of fighting in Donbas.
Earlier today, the press center of Ukraine's Anti-Terrorist Operation stated that Ukrainian positions in the east have experienced the most intense shelling in weeks.
Last week, Odesa Governor Mikheil Saakashvili caused a firestorm after posting a photo with old-school Russian rock star Boris Grebenshchikov.
Now he's published a video.
In the video, Grebenshchikov and Nino Katamadze, a Georgian jazz singer, sit at a table with about 20 more people drinking red and sparkling wine.
Grebenshchikov, playing an acoustic guitar, is soon joined in song by Katamadze.
In Russia, reaction to the impromptu jam session in Odesa was met with similar incredulity by Kremlin supporters. Russian political scientist Sergey Markov told Regnum information agency that the charm of “Kyiv junta war crimes” and Saakashvili had seized Grebenshchikov.
-- Anna Shamanska
Summary of the conflicting claims from our news desk:
One Ukrainian soldier has been killed and nine injured in the latest clashes between Ukrainian armed forces and Russia-backed separatists in the Donetsk region, a Ukrainian military official says.
Vladyslav Seleznyov, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Armed Forces General Staff, said on August 10 that Ukrainian forces had managed to maintain control over the town of Starohnativka after a separatist attack.
Starohnativka is located about halfway between separatist-held Donetsk and Kyiv-controlled Mariupol.
Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, told reporters in Kyiv that up to 400 separatists supported by 10 tanks and 10 armored personnel carriers and other vehicles attacked Ukrainian positions overnight.
According to Lysenko, "the enemy suffered significant losses in personnel and equipment."
Meanwhile, the de facto defense minister of the separatist Donetsk People Republic, Eduard Basurin, says forces under his command stopped an attempt by Ukrainian forces to advance in the same area on August 10.
According to Basurin, Ukrainian forces lost two tanks, one armored personnel carrier, and a military truck with a missile on it.
More than 6,500 people have been killed in the military conflict between Ukrainian armed forces and pro-Russia separatists in parts of Ukraine's eastern regions of Luhansk and Donetsk since April 2014.
A fragile cease-fire was negotiated in Minsk in February, but it is marred by daily violations. (UNIAN, Interfax)
Ukraine claims gains, separatists say no change:
A separatist attack on Ukrainian forces in Starohnativka, Donetsk Oblast, resulted into Ukraine gaining 2-3 kilometers of separatist-controlled territory, according to Ukraine's Defense Ministry.
Around 3:25 a.m. local time, one battalion of separatist forces, with the help of 10 tanks and 10 infantry fighting vehicles, attacked a stronghold of the Ukrainian Army close to Starohnativka, the ministry said.
Seven Ukrainians were injured, and the separatists "suffered significant losses."
At the same time, a representative of the so-called Donetsk People's Republic defense ministry, Eduard Basurin, claimed that Starohnativka had been under Ukrainian control the entire time.
"[The Ukrainian side] says that the militia attacked, but as a result they took hold of some key points themselves. This is false information to accuse us of violating the Minsk agreements," Basurin said.
-- Anna Shamanska
At the bottom of Andriyivskiy Descent, a picturesque Kyiv old-town street, 78-year-old Raisa sells hand-embroidered handkerchiefs. Raisa sends all the money she makes to the front lines -- about 1,000 hryvnyas at a time (a little less than $50).
The most expensive handkerchief she sells is made out of silk, and costs 33 hryvnyas or $1.50. She says, the price won't be raised, and even if "a dollar costs 50 hryvnyas" she'll keep it the same price.
It takes Raisa about four days to embroider one handkerchief. She is blind in one eye, and she says that her hands "don't always follow her commands."
Raisa was born in Belarusian Mohylev, before living in Grozny, and then Moscow, where she attended a university. She doesn't have fond memories. "I learnt what Russia was back in Moscow, when I studied in the university. There was such hatred, contempt," she says.
Raisa promises to sell her handkerchiefs at the same spot for as long as she can.
-- Anna Shamanska
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has ordered the General Staff to inform the OSCE and -- through the Joint Coordination Center for Cease-Fire Monitoring -- the Russian Federation about cease-fire violations by pro-Russian separatists in Donbas.
Poroshenko's statement followed a day in which Ukrainian positions experienced the most intense shelling in weeks, according to the press center of Ukraine's Anti-Terrorist Operation.
Separatist new agency DPR news has reported shelling from the Ukrainian side. A well-known separatist Twitter account, "Reports of the Militia," tweeted in the afternoon on August 9 that "Minsk is obsolete."
Although the OSCE hasn't explicitly blamed anybody for the burning of seven of its cars in Donetsk on August 9, the organization stated in a Facebook post that the responsibility for ensuring protection of OSCE employees lies on those in control of Donetsk.
-- Anna Shamanska
Here is today's map of the military situation in eastern Ukraine, according to the National Security and Defense Council:
