White House spokesman Josh Earnest quoted by AFP as saying that "we do anticipate that we'll have some news on that [new Russia sanctions] soon -- as soon as today."
ITAR-TASS quotes IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde as saying the institution has no plans to increase its lending to Ukraine, adding that no additional funding is currently needed.
To put it into context, you'd need the Reuters report from earlier in the day:
The International Monetary Fund's $17 billion (10.03 billion pounds) loan programme for Ukraine may have to be revised if the country's conflict in its eastern regions continues for much longer, the head of the IMF said without specifying further.
"(The IMF program) is premised on having a degree of resolution of the current conflict in the not-too-distant future," IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde told reporters on Tuesday. "So you see I'm using a lot of precautions, and I'm not pinning down to 'x months,' or a (certain) degree of conflict," she said.
"As it stands and under circumstances and the set of our assumptions, which includes a conflict that is resolved in the not-too-distant future, no additional financing is needed," Lagarde added.
"If any of these key parameters changes substantially, we will have to revisit the whole strategy, because we are talking about a different situation," she said.
RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service reports that a Ukrainian Security Service statement claims to have captured separatists at a "headquarters" near Popasna in Luhansk, where the "terrorists" were gathering aeronautical maps and other "flight support data" from airports in the region before "handing it over to their leadership, run by Russian special services."
Paul Goble cites Sobkorr.ru on the lessons of the surprisingly long history of the "Donetsk Republic":
This prehistory is important for two reasons. On the one hand, it lends support to those who argue that Vladimir Putin began planning for his aggression in Ukraine at the time of his war against Georgia, calculating that the limited Western response to his actions in the Caucasian country opened the way for a move against Ukraine.
Additionally, it highlights the need to monitor such groups elsewhere. Because such online communities may be an important way for the Russian security agencies to identify and recruit those they would like to employ in the future. The groups might even help to assess how much of an opportunity for Moscow any particular one presents.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel says that given Moscow's actions in Ukraine and EU warnings, "[t]he decision today [to impose further sanctions] was thus unavoidable," Reuters reported. (AFP translated that last word as "inevitable.")
"It is now up to the leadership in Russia to decide whether they want to go the way of de-escalation and cooperation," Merkel said. "The EU sanctions can be reviewed but further steps are also possible."