Our Ukrainian service with more on the statement by ex-President Leonid Kuchma, who was present in Belarus yesterday on Ukraine's behalf for the trilateral talks with Russia and the OSCE, suggesting 20 more of the soldiers detained by separatists during fighting in eastern Ukraine could be released under a deal reached by the so-called contact group.
Ukraine's Interior Ministry says two guardsmen policemen were found shot in the Donetsk region. (I can't get to the link, so unclear to me if these are the same two men reported here.)
No fresh starts here.
Also see our story on the bogus Tefft social-media accounts that have already arisen and/or been shut down: "Sham Twitter Feed Of U.S. 'Ambassador' To Russia Blocked."
People around the world are responding to Russia's ban on virtually all Polish fruit -- ostensibly for health and documentation violations but widely regarded as tit-for-tat over EU sanctions -- with #eatapples activism:
An update with confirmed death toll, via our newsroom:
Ukraine's military said 14 people, including at least 10 soldiers, were killed in an ambush by pro-Russian separatists near the town of Shakhtarsk, in eastern Donetsk region, early on August 1.
Military spokesman Oleksiy Dmytrashkivsky said the death of 10 soldiers has been confirmed but that four other bodies had not been identified and could be either soldiers, or separatists.
Ukraine's military has recently forced the separatists out of some areas they held in the east after days of intense fighting.
Shakhtarsk is in the area where a Malaysian airliner came down on July 17, allegedly shot down by the separatists.
A team of Dutch and Australian police and crash experts visited the crash site for the first time on July 31, having been unable to reach the site for days because of the heavy fighting.
Based on reporting by Reuters, UNIAN, and ITAR-TASS