White House says Vice President Joseph Biden to meet with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin later today. -Reuters
"Donetsk People's Republic" paramilitary leader Igor Girkin (aka Strelkov) has called a press conference for this evening in Donetsk, reporters there say.
He's referring to a volunteer paramilitary detachment under Ukraine's Interior Ministry:
An interpretive map of "Novorossia" from our Belarus Service. Not sure what to think of it.
More from the Office of United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights statement released in connection with the new report that says the Ukrainian conflict has killed at least 1,129 people since mid-April, injured 3,442 more, and left some 100,000 people displaced.
The OHCHR accuses pro-Russian separatists of subjecting eastern Ukraine to "a reign of intimidation and terror" and suggests the downing of MH17 "may amount to a war crime."
The latest report -- the agency's fourth -- covers the period from July 8 to 15. Here's an excerpt from the OHCHR statement accompanying it:
A total breakdown of law and order and a reign of fear and terror have been inflicted by armed groups on the population of eastern Ukraine, according to a new report issued today by the Office of United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
The report documents how these armed groups continue to abduct, detain, torture and execute people kept as hostages in order to intimidate and “to exercise their power over the population in raw and brutal ways.” Well organized and well equipped militarily, these armed groups have intensified their challenge to the Government of Ukraine, the report says. In response, there has been an acceleration of Government security operations during July in the areas still under the control of the armed groups, with heavy fighting located in and around population centres, resulting in loss of life, property and infrastructure and causing thousands to flee.
“The reports of increasingly intense fighting in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions are extremely alarming, with both sides employing heavy weaponry in built-up areas, including artillery, tanks, rockets and missiles,” said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay.
“Both sides must take great care to prevent more civilians from being killed or injured,” she added. “Already increasing numbers of people are being killed with serious damage to civilian infrastructure, which – depending on circumstances – could amount to violations of international humanitarian law. The fighting must stop.”