Poll: 43 percent of Ukrainians want to restore Ukraine's status as a nuclear power.
From our news desk:
The OSCE Parliamentary Assembly has expressed "grave concern" over the crisis in Ukraine and reaffirmed its intention to engage all parties in efforts to achieve a peaceful resolution.
A resolution concluding a meeting of the Parliamentary Assembly in Baku also calls on Russia to “reverse the annexation" of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol.
Nine OSCE parliamentarians, including members of the Russian delegation, abstained from voting for the resolution, which passed by a majority of 97 to 1.
The resolution -- dubbed the Baku Declaration -- also expressed concern over the "misuse of administrative procedures and legislation" to silence rights activists in OSCE participating states, including Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Russia.
It asked Turkmenistan to provide information on persons who have disappeared in the country’s prisons and expressed "deep concern" over "victims of politicized court cases" in Azerbaijan.
Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council, said today that four Ukrainian troops were killed as national forces carried out attacks on more than 100 rebel positions and cleared separatists from three villages.
Lysenko said three military personnel died in rebel attacks on government vehicles and checkpoints; a border guard was also killed by rebel motar fire on the Novoazovsk crossing point.
Ukrainian forces say they detained a top pro-Russian separatist leader from the eastern Donetsk region on July 1. Video distributed by Ukraine's SBU state security service shows soldiers arresting a man identified as the self-proclaimed mayor of the town of Horlivka, Volodymyr Kolosnyuk, in Berdyansk near Zaporizhzhya. NOTE: There is no audio on this video. (Reuters)
BBC Russian Service reporting 35 percent fewer tourists in Crimea this year.
Slon.ru is reporting that the publisher of the Ukrainian edition of "Forbes" magazine says he has been banned from entering Ukraine for three years.
Yuriy Rovensky, who chairs Ukraine's powerful UMH publishing company, said he was informed of the decision when border guards blocked his attempt to enter the country. He is currently located in Moscow and says he will continue to run his publications from there. (In addition to "Forbes," UMH distributes "Vogue," "Reporter," "Telenedelya," Argumenty i Fakty," and "Komsomolskaya pravda" in Ukraine.)
The former owner of "Forbes," oligarch Serhiy Kurchenko, fled Ukraine after it was revealed that he had stolen as much as $1 billion from state coffers on behalf of then-President Viktor Yanukovych. (Miguel Forbes, who oversaw the "Forbes" publishing empire on behalf of his family, was forced to leave his job after it became clear he had negotiated Kurchenko's takeover bid of the Ukrainian edition, which had itself reported on his alleged corruption.)
Crimea as seen from the ISS.
Who needs McDonald's when you've got RusBurger?
Bloomberg is reporting that the Russian hamburger chain is set to open its first restaurant in Crimea, three months after McDonald's pulled out from the territory. Main offerings are a Czar cheeseburger, a Bogatyr sandwich, and local pear lemonade.
"Consumers are tired of tastelessness and are missing the taste of Russia," RusBurger says on its website. "Ours is better."
The Crimean Tatar parliament, or Mejlis, will hold its next formal session outside Crimea, in order to allow its traditional figurehead, Mustafa Dzhemilev, to attend.
Dzhemilev, a Soviet-era dissident and former Mejlis chairman, fiercely opposed Russia's forced annexation of Crimea. In response, Russia authorities have banned the 70-year-ol d Crimea Tatar leader from entering the territory for a five-year period.
The date of the session has yet to be announced, but it is believed the meeting will be held in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson and will focus on fall elections to Crimean local councils.
During its last session June 12, the Mejlis decided to boycott the September 14 elections to the Russian-backed Crimean parliament in favor of holding its own elections the same day.