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Ukrainian servicemen ride in a tank close to the airport in the eastern city of Donetsk, a facility which has been the site of intense fighting for several weeks.
Ukrainian servicemen ride in a tank close to the airport in the eastern city of Donetsk, a facility which has been the site of intense fighting for several weeks.

Live Blog: Ukraine In Crisis (Archive)

We have moved the Ukraine Crisis Live Blog. Sorry for any inconvenience. Please find it HERE.

08:57 8.7.2014

RFE's Crimea desk reports that Russian LDPR lawmaker Roman Khudyakov has proposed a redesign of the 100-ruble note to feature an image of Sevastopol.

Khudyakov says the note, which currently features a drawing of the Apollo statue atop the Bolshoi Theater, violates Russian law on the protection of children from harmful information, because it shows "intimate parts of the body."

Apollo's intimate parts were covered with fig leaves during the reconstruction of the Bolshoi, but the bank note remains unchanged.

Khudyakov suggested the bill should be marked with an "18+" warning.

"Given that this denomenation of banknote often falls into the hands of children as pocket money, I urge you to help change the design of the banknotes or otherwise bring it in line with current legislation," he wrote in a letter to the head of the Bank of Russia, Elvira Nabiullina.

08:35 8.7.2014

Ukraine's Information Resistance website reports that members of an illegal armed group shot mortar fire overnight at three checkpoints manned by Ukrainian troops.

The posts were located near Ilyinki, Marynovki, and Dykovo.

No deaths were reported. Information Resistance also reports that an additional city in the Donetsk region, Konstantynovka, has come under full control of national troops.

08:27 8.7.2014

Good morning!

Interfax reports that Valeriy Chaly, the deputy head of the Ukrainian presidential administration, has said that Kyiv will not declare another unilateral cease-fire in the east.

Speaking on ICTV television late July 7, Chaly said, "the unilateral cease-fire proved to be inefficient. Only a bilateral cease-fire can be on the table now."

20:44 7.7.2014

Closing out tonight's liveblog with a gratuitous, but always welcome, kitten shot.

We'll be back tomorrow morning.

20:41 7.7.2014

20:39 7.7.2014

20:33 7.7.2014

RFE's Glenn Kates and our Ukrainian Service report on the mood in Slovyansk, where resumed food shipments have been met with relief but much work remains to be done.

READ: A City Liberated From Separatists, But Badly Wounded

18:07 7.7.2014

16:16 7.7.2014
Nadiya Savchenko
Nadiya Savchenko

The sister of Ukrainian pilot Nadiya Savchenko says Nadiya is still being held hostage in eastern Ukraine nearly three weeks after being captured by pro-Russian separatists from the Luhansk People's Republic.

Vera Savchenko told RFE's Ukrainian Service that she traveled personally to Luhansk to look for her sister, but said she was detained outside the regional administration building after she was forced to show her Kyiv-based registration papers.

"I was interrogated by people who said themselves they were from Russia. They said I was a sniper," she said.

Vera says she was held overnight inside the regional administration building, but eventually managed to get free. She says she received no evidence that her sister had been transported to Russia, as some reports have suggested. She believes Nadiya is still in Luhansk.

Nadiya Savchenko, a helicopter pilot and first lieutentant in the Ukrainian Army, was captured in an ambush near the city of Metalist on June 18. Her captors later released her video interrogation on the internet.

Ukrainian Defense Ministry spokesman Bohdan Senyk said June 26 that the release of Savchenko and other POWs was "expected in the near future.

15:13 7.7.2014

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