Video from our Ukraine Service. Activists staged a rally in central Kyiv on July 11 demanding the immediate release of Nadiya Savchenko, a Ukrainian pilot held in Russia. (Read our profile of her here.) Savchenko was seized by pro-Russian separatists in June near Luhansk, eastern Ukraine.
She was turned over to authorities in Russia, where she faces charges of complicity in the June 17 killing of two Russian journalists who died in the fighting near Luhansk. The protesters in Kyiv held up banners that read, "Ukraine Needs Nadiya," which also translates as "Ukraine Needs Hope."
OK, they look a bit happier here.
First wedding in the "'Donetsk People's Republic." They don't look very happy.
About two dozen women and children from the embattled city of Luhansk arrived by train on July 9 in Lviv, in the west of Ukraine. Parents said they left Luhansk fearing for the health and safety of their children as fighting intensified in the city between pro-Russian rebels and Ukrainian forces. According to official information, some 3,300 people from Ukraine's southeast have found refuge in Lviv. (RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service)
Supposedly the military situation in eastern Ukraine:
LATEST from our news desk:
An adviser to Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov has said separatist rebels in the east may have killed as many as 30 government soldiers in a rocket attack.
Zoryan Shkyryak is quoted by Reuters as saying the rebels used Grad multiple-rocket launchers in their assault.
"Up to 30 [were killed]," Shkyryak said. "It is not excluded that the number of victims will rise because these bloodthirsty scum despicably shot from Grad [missile] systems and there is destruction."
The news comes amid a renewed government offensive against the rebels.
Military spokesman Vladyslav Seleznyov claimed that at least 50 separatist fighters had been killed in the last few days.
The Ukrainian military said it has a plan to deliver a "nasty surprise" to the rebels holed up in Donetsk, a city of 900,000, after being pushed out of their bastion in Slovyansk last weekend. (Reuters, UNIAN, and Interfax)