Our newsroom reports that Ukraine's consul has visited Nadiya Savchenko, a Ukrainian military officer being held in Russia. Here's more:
The Russian agency monitoring penitentiaries said that Consul Hennadiy Breskalenko met with Savchenko, a senior lieutenant in the Ukrainian Air Force, in a detention center in the Russian city of Voronezh on July 16.
It took Breskalenko several days to get permission to see Savchenko.
Savchenko, 33, has been indicted in Russia for her alleged complicity in the killing of two Russian journalists last month near Luhansk.
The journalists were covering Ukraine's military offensive against pro-Russian separatists.
A court in Voronezh has ordered her held in pretrial detention until August 30.
Kyiv says Savchenko had been captured by pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine and "illegally transferred" to Russia.
Russia's Investigative Committee insists Savchenko was detained within Russia.
Based on reporting by RIA Novosti and Interfax
ITAR-TASS quotes a Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council spokesman as saying that aerial missions have resumed. They had reportedly been suspended following the downing on July 14 of an AN-26 transport aircraft.
Separatists have also claimed to have shot down four Su-25 fighter jets over the past five days, including two today, although those claims have not been confirmed.
Ukrainian Radical Party lawmaker and second-place presidential candidate in the recent election Oleh Lyazhko is shown "personally hunting separatists" in this Vice News piece:
A chance for talks to go forward?
Pro-Russian separatist leader in Donetsk says talks with Ukrainian government to be held soon:
From our news desk:
Ukraine's military says 11 more soldiers have been killed over the past 24 hours, mostly in clashes with pro-Moscow separatists near the border with Russia.
Andriy Lysenko, spokesman for Ukraine's Defense and Security Council, told the press that government troops had been ambushed by separatists at Izvarino on the border, and there had been clashes near the border settlement of Stepanivka when separatists tried to break out of encirclement by the army.
Lysenko said that in Slovyansk, the former rebel stronghold retaken by government forces this month, "hundreds of bodies of...[rebel] fighters" had been found in shallow graves.
The government has given high figures for rebel casualties in the past that could not be verified.
Around 270 Ukrainian servicemen and hundreds of civilians and rebels have been killed since the government launched an offensive in April against the separatists in the east. (Reuters and ITAR-TASS)