Foreign Policy drills deeper and looks at the evidence that Russia is firing short-range rockets into Ukraine:
"Several of the videos, filmed near a pond of some sort, were apparently taken by a resident of the town. A careful perusal of Google Street View reveals that several physical features in the videos match exactly a location in the northwest corner of the town, less than two miles from the Ukrainian border. The distinctive topography of the lake, the placement of bushes and rocks, the tree line in the background, and a series of evenly spaced light poles that appear in multiple videos and in the Google maps appear to place the rocket launch inside of Russian territory. A preliminary analysis of the angles in the videos shows that there is almost no way that a Grad rocket launch from this location could miss Ukrainian territory. Yet another video, taken due south of the rocket launch, proves conclusively that these rockets were launched inside Russia and not over the border."
Phil Breedlove is NATO's supreme allied commander in Europe. He just tweeted this:
Putin, apparently, "could...not promise your return to the Crimea because you were a citizen of the (emphasis ours) Ukraine and a Member of Parliament in Kiev."
Two journos wondering why Moscow has not yet responded to the accusation from Kyiv that a Russian plane shot down a Ukrainian fighter jet over Ukrainian territory late yesterday.
Today's map of the military state of affairs in eastern Ukraine, as commissioned and issued by the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council:
Award-winning Russian ORT journalist Pavel Sheremet announced on Facebook that he'd quit his job over Moscow policies on Ukraine. He claimed that the state TV station's management was being pressured to "deal with the Russophobe Sheremet," RFE/RL's Russian Service reports.
Sheremet reiterated his criticism of the annexation of Crimea and support for Ukrainian separatists as a "bloody adventure and fatal mistake."
Here's Reuters video of Putin's calling the latest round of U.S. sanctions targeting major Russian banks and energy companies a "dead end" that will have a "boomerang effect." The Russian leader said at the news conference in Brasilia on July 16 that he believed the new sanctions could harm the long-term national interests of the United States.
