As this latest map of the military situation from Ukraine's Defense Ministry shows, things do seem to be hotting up in the Donbas:
Here's a stat from RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service:
902 -- the number of Ukrainian military personnel released from captivity in 2014-2015, according to information released by the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense.
Here's an interesting item from RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service:
MOSCOW -- The trial has begun in a Moscow court of five Russians charged with hate crimes over a stunt in which a Soviet star atop a Stalin-era skyscraper was painted in the yellow-and-blue colors of the Ukrainian flag.
A Ukrainian flag was also hoisted over the wedding-cake apartment tower near the Kremlin early on August 20, 2014.
The politically charged prank came amid rising tension between Moscow and Kyiv following Russia's takeover of Crimea and the start of the war between government forces and Russia-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine.
The five defendants -- three men and two women -- have been charged with "vandalism and hooliganism aimed to destabilize the situation in Moscow and provoke hatred."
They could be sentenced to seven years in prison if convicted.
The stunt was carried out in the dark of night at a 32-story apartment building in a prominent spot downriver from the Kremlin -- one of Moscow's hulking, distinctive "seven sisters" buildings erected under dictator Josef Stalin.
Four defendants -- Anna Lepyoshkina, Yevgenia Korotkova, Aleksandr Pogrebov, and Aleksei Shirokozhukhov -- were detained within hours, and are accused of drawing attention to the flag and painted star by jumping from the 176-meter building with parachutes.
They pleaded not guilty at the hearing on August 17 at Moscow's Taganka district court.
The fifth defendant, Vladimir Podrezov, is accused of helping Ukrainian stunt daredevil Pavlo Ushyvets -- known by the nickname Mustang Wanted -- to paint the star and hoist the Ukrainian flag.
Podrezov pleaded "partially guilty," saying that he climbed on the top of the building without knowing of Ushyvets's plan to put up the flag.
Defense lawyers told RFE/RL on August 17 that their clients were simply thrill-seekers and had nothing to do with the stunt.
Ushyvets, who is in Ukraine, announced on Facebook two days after the stunt that he carried it out and said the defendants now on trial in Russia had nothing to do with it.
Ushyvets said that his action was meant to celebrate Ukrainian Independence Day, which is marked on August 24, and to honor Ukrainians who have died in the conflict in the east.
Ushyvets has also said that he is ready to face trial in Russia if the authorities release Ukrainian pilot Nadia Savchenko, who is being tried in Russia on charges of involvement in the killing of two Russian journalists who died while covering the conflict.
(With reporting by rapsinews.ru)
Meanwhile in Donetsk...
Russian police say they are investigating an online community that urges members to post selfies with dead people and offers cash prizes for the photographs.
A police spokesman in the northern Russian city of Syktyvkar said their investigation targets a group that calls itself Selfie With The Dead on the Russian social networking site VKontakte.
The group’s administrators pledge to pay between 1,000 and 5,000 rubles ($15-$76) for the best selfie with a corpse.
The group’s page is filled with photographs of people posing and smiling alongside dead bodies at funeral homes.
The profile of the community’s main administrator, named as Alfred Polyakov, has been blocked for “suspicious activity.”
Polyakov described himself to AFP as a 28-year-old university professor from Donetsk -- the separatist-controlled city in eastern Ukraine.
He said he created the group in July “to change popular attitudes toward death.”
(AFP, The Moscow Times)
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko called the visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to annexed Crimea a "challenge to the civilized world" and an aggravation of the military situation in Eastern Ukraine.
“Such trips mean further militarization of the occupied Ukrainian peninsula and lead to its greater isolation,” the presidential spokesman quoted Poroshenko as saying.
Poroshenko said that Crimea has a future only as a part of Ukraine.
Putin came to Crimea on August 17 to chair a meeting of the presidium of the so-called State Council of Crimea about the development of tourism in Russia.
According to the press office of the Russian government, the country’s Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev is visiting Crimea as well. Medvedev plans to meet the participants of the all-Russian youth educational forum "Tavrida."
According to this tweet, three T-72 tanks were spotted in Donetsk moving towards the center around 11 a.m. local time.