9 dead as shelling increases in eastern Ukraine
DONETSK, Ukraine (AP) -- A night-long artillery exchange in eastern Ukraine between government troops and Russia-backed rebels claimed nine lives on Monday, casting doubt on the already shaky cease-fire.
The fighting between Russia-backed separatist rebels and Ukrainian government troops in the country's industrial heartland eased after a truce was signed in February. But despite pledges to withdraw heavy caliber weapons from the front lines, both sides seem to be engaged in recent heavy fighting.
The conflict has killed an estimated 6,400 people since April 2014, according to the United Nations.
The rebel mouthpiece Donetsk News Agency said artillery fire killed three people in a front line town of Horlivka and two in the rebel capital of Donetsk. Ukrainian officials reported two civilian deaths on their side, in a suburb of Mariupol on the Black Sea. The Ukrainian Security and Defense Council also reported two troops killed and six injured overnight.
The shelling on Monday came after failed talks between Ukraine, the rebels and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe which were supposed to agree on further steps to withdraw weaponry.
An Associated Press reporter in Donetsk witnessed weaponry on the move in the past few days while salvos of incoming and outgoing Grad rockets were frequently heard.
President Vladimir Putin, who met representatives of various ethnic communities in the Russia-occupied Crimea on Monday, did not comment on the recent shelling. But he used the opportunity to claim that the current Ukrainian government is not free to make its own decisions because the country "is being managed from the outside."
Putin has alleged that Kiev's decisions are heavily influenced by Western powers including the United States.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Monday accused the Ukrainian government in Kiev of derailing the recent talks on withdrawal. Lavrov said the uptick in shelling could be the beginning of a new Ukrainian offensive.
"We're worried about events of the recent days, which look very much like preparation for fresh hostilities," he said.
In Washington, U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby told reporters that there was no mistaking who was responsible for the recent increase in attacks.
"Russia and the separatists are launching these attacks, just as they escalated the conflict last August," he said. "Efforts by Russia and separatists to grab more territory will be met with further costs."
OSCE observers warned Saturday about heavy weaponry that has gone missing after it was withdrawn from the front lines. The OSCE monitors were denied access to two locations in rebel-held areas where heavy caliber weapons were supposed to be kept. They were told at one location that 11 Grad multiple rocket launchers had been taken to Donetsk.
Putin Warns Crimean Tatars Not To Seek Special Status
By RFE/RL
Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned minority ethnic Tatars that they should not strive for special status on the Crimean Peninsula that Moscow annexed from Ukraine last year.
Muslim Tatars comprise more than 10 percent of Crimea's population and largely opposed the Russian takeover last year, mindful of the mass deportations ordered by Moscow during the Soviet era. They have come under pressure to align themselves with the new authorities since the annexation.
On a three-day visit to Crimea to promote tourism and development, Putin met representatives of various minorities on August 17, including the Tatars, at a luxury resort in the village of Opolznevoe.
"Interethnic relations are a delicate matter," Putin told the envoys. "I see any speculation on any sort of special rights for one particular ethnicity as extremely dangerous."
Putin said Moscow would not allow foreign-funded rights groups to destabilize the peninsula by playing up problems faced by Crimean Tatars, the third largest ethnic group after Russians and Ukrainians on the peninsula.
"Crimea is essentially a mirror of multiethnic Russia. Here, like everywhere in Russia, we need to pay the utmost, constant attention to building greater peace and harmony, combining the efforts of the state authorities and civil society," Putin said. "I therefore consider this meeting with you...very important indeed."
Russia has drawn criticism from the European rights watchdog OSCE, the United Nations, Council of Europe, and Turkey for its treatment of the Turkic-speaking minority. The Tatars are distrustful of Moscow after the 1944 mass deportation of their kin.
Tatars started returning to Crimea in large numbers after the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, and enjoyed a cultural revival within Ukraine.
Since the 2014 annexation, Russian security forces have raided their main assembly, or Mejlis, and evicted them from the premises. Russia also silenced the Tatars' television broadcaster, ATR.
Several local Tatar activists were reportedly killed, beaten, or went missing. Two top leaders of the community were barred from Crimea.
But Moscow has also made conciliatory gestures to win the Crimean Tatars over. It granted them legal rehabilitation along with other ethnic minorities who suffered under Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, and accorded official status to their language.
Putin offered longtime Tatar residents of Crimea Russian citizenship on his visit.
While trying to inhibit the work of Crimean Tatars loyal to Kyiv, Moscow has sought to promote new Tatar groups that would be willing to cooperate with the Kremlin.
The mix of pressure and promises has left Crimean Tatars increasingly split over whether to resist or deal with Russia.
With reporting by Reuters, TASS, and Interfax
Barring any major developments, that ends the live blogging for today.