And away from Ukraine:
NATO announced yesterday that it is planning constantly manned facilities in NATO-member countries that are east of what formerly was the Iron Curtain. The Ukrianian PM is today calling for more NATO help:
Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk says Kyiv expects NATO to act to help Ukraine at the alliance's summit in Wales next week.
Speaking at a government meeting on August 27, Yatsenyuk said "we expect our Western partners and the alliance to provide practical help and take crucial decisions" at the September 4-5 summit.
"We need aid," he added.
Ukraine is battling a separatist insurgency in the country's east that it accuses Russia of fomenting. Moscow denies this.
Yatsenyuk also said Kyiv knows of plans by Russia to halt gas flows to Europe via Ukraine this winter.
"The situation in [Ukraine's] energy sector is difficult," he said. "We know of Russia's plans to block [gas] transit even to European Union countries this winter."
Energy giant Gazprom and the Russian Energy Ministry were not immediately available for comment.
Busy news day today. More allegations of Russian troops in Ukraine.
There are new allegations by Ukraine of Russian soldiers and armored vehicles crossing the border and entering the country's restive east, where a separatist insurgency rages.
Military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said on August 27 that a group of Russian soldiers had crossed the Ukrainian border in armored infantry carriers and entered the town of Amvrosiyivka.
Lysenko also said government forces had killed about 200 separatists and destroyed tanks and missile systems in recent fighting further north. He said 13 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed in the previous 24 hours.
In a separate statement, the Ukrainian military said a massive convoy of tanks and heavy weaponry from Russia was traveling toward Telmanove, about 80 kilometers south of Donetsk.
It is unclear if this column is the same as an armored convoy from Russia that Kyiv said it attacked near Mariupol on August 25.
Intense video of Ukr. forces fighting in Ilovaisk, just E of Donetsk. Conflicting claims about who is winning there. http://t.co/J3M3woTRSj
— Roland Oliphant (@RolandOliphant) August 27, 2014
Footage purportedly from the other side of the lines in the same town, from Russia's Channel 1. http://t.co/ztTgIGMcnz
— Roland Oliphant (@RolandOliphant) August 27, 2014
Here is the latest map of the situation in eastern Ukraine from Kyiv's National Security and Defense Council:
In #Lugansk, all Russian humanitarian aid has been handed out, queues all over city of people looking for anything. pic.twitter.com/zhNWknu54x
— GrahamWPhillips (@GrahamWP_UK) August 27, 2014
It seems that two more McDonald's outlets may have been caught in the cross fire of Russia's food fight with the West:
Two more McDonald's restaurants are closing temporarily in Moscow on the orders of state food regulators as Russia and the West feud over Ukraine.
Moscow courts today granted requests by the regulatory agency Rospotrebnadzor to suspend the operation of a McDonald's at Manezh Square, just outside the Kremlin, and one on Prospekt Mira for 90 days.
The new suspensions bring to eight the number of McDonald's restaurants closed nationwide in recent weeks.
Regulators have cited "technical violations" of health codes and ordered the restaurants to correct them before they can re-open.
Russia has responded to Western sanctions over Ukraine by targeting Western food imports and some U.S. companies.
Moscow slapped a ban on most Western food imports earlier this month after Washington and Brussels imposed economic sanctions targeting Russian economic sectors including finance and energy.
(ITAR-TASS, Interfax)