Here's another update from RFE/RL's news desk:
NATO has warned Moscow that any attempt by Russian-backed separatists to take more territory in eastern Ukraine would be "unacceptable."
NATO said in a statement on August 19 that its 28 member states had discussed the recent escalation in violence in Ukraine and added that "Russia has a special responsibility to find a political solution" to the crisis.
It called on all parties to "de-escalate tensions and exercise restraint."
NATO said any attempt by the rebels to move further into Ukraine would be "unacceptable to the international community."
Fighting between government forces and the separatist forces around the southern port city of Mariupol in recent days has led to several people being killed.
NATO also called on all sides to ensure that monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) can perform their jobs "safely and without restrictions."
More than 6,400 people have been killed in eastern Ukraine since March 2014.
(Reuters, dpa)
Hmmm, this could get someone in trouble, if the claim is taken seriously
Brian Whitmore, author of the Power Vertical blog, is in no doubt about what the incarceration of Eston Kohver, Oleh Sentsov, and Nadia Sentsov means:
One is a police officer; one is a filmmaker; and one is a pilot.
Three people illegally abducted from their homelands and unjustly incarcerated by a rogue foreign power -- their lives uprooted and disrupted, their futures in doubt.
Meet Vladimir Putin's hostages, two men and a woman who have become victims of the Kremlin leader's jihad against international rules, norms, and law.
Putin has done many shocking and disturbing things in the past couple of years.
He's the first leader to forcibly annex another country's territory in Europe since Adolf Hitler. He started a completely manufactured war in eastern Ukraine that has killed thousands. He's plunged Russia into an absurd spiral of xenophobia, intolerance, and repression. He's engaged in a dangerous game of brinksmanship with the West.
And he's also become a kidnapper -- the functional equivalent of an international crime boss.
Read the entire article here
Just a reminder: you can find our full English transcript of Oleh Sentsov's moving speech from the dock here