Responding to Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s statement about Russia’s head of state Vladimir Putin visiting Crimea, a Twitter account named “Russian Donetsk” wrote:
"He should better be worried about the imminent visit of Motorola to Mariupol."
"Motorola" is nom de guerre of a separatist commander Arseny Pavlov, who earlier this year told the Kyiv Post newspaper he had killed 15 captured Ukrainian soldiers.
Ukrainian port city Mariupol and its suburbs experienced heavy fighting in the early hours of August 17. At least two civilians are reported dead, six more are injured.
In today's Daily Vertical, Brian Whtmore suggests that the uptick in hostilities in eastern Ukraine could be part of a big Russian psyop:
RFE/RL's Current Time has sent us this video:
In eastern Ukraine, artillery shells rained down on homes in the outskirts of Donetsk. The area was under control of Russia-backed separatists, but it was not clear who fired amid the increasingly heavy barrages with Ukrainian government forces.
Ukraine's Foreign Ministry hits out over Crimea tourism:
“Mass tourism of Russian leadership to Crimea is the only attempt to support tourism on the peninsula,” the Foreign Ministry wrote on its official Twitter-feed.
“Nobody else would visit the temporarily occupied territory, which is under sanctions, in their right mind,” it added.
During the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine, 6,832 people have died and 17,087 have been injured, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in a statement dated August 14 and published today.
The figures do not distinguish between military and civilian casualties. They are based on calculations done by the UN Mission on Human Rights in Ukraine and the World Health Organization.
According to the report, around 2.3 million people had to leave their homes in the conflict area for other regions in Ukraine or abroad.
The shelling of the Mariupol suburbs early this morning, which killed two people and injured six, is being officially called a "terrorist attack" in Ukraine. The Donetsk prosecutor’s office began the necessary proceedings today, said Ukrainian military spokesman Andriy Lysenko at a press conference.
According to him, separatists were deliberately shelling residential areas, and not the positions of the Ukrainian troops.
Barring any major developments, that ends the live blogging for today.
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.