An update from our news desk on the fighting around Donetsk:
Renewed fighting has flared up near Donetsk, despite a eight-day cease-fire between pro-Russian separatists and government forces in eastern Ukraine.
The Ukrainian military said its forces had repelled an attack on the airport of Donetsk.
The city of Donetsk is controlled by the separatists, but the airport is controlled by government forces.
Meanwhile, a convoy of trucks which Russian officials say are carrying humanitarian aid arrived in Luhansk, the other major separatist stronghold in eastern Ukraine.
The OSCE observer mission at the Russian-Ukrainian border said 220 trucks had crossed into Ukraine.
It said only 40 trucks were checked by Russian customs officials, and that none of the vehicles were inspected by the Ukrainian side or by the ICRC.
The Ukrainian government accused Russia of a "direct invastion" after a similar convoy entered Ukraine last month without permission from authorities in Kyiv.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, in a TV interview shown today, has dismissed as "nonsense" claims that "Russia is interested in creating another (breakaway region like Moldova's) Transdniester or a buffer zone (in eastern Ukraine)."
And in a reference to the latest Western sanctions, he accused the United States of "trying to use the crisis in Ukraine to break economic ties between the EU and Russia and force Europe to buy U.S. liquefied gas at much higher prices."
It's pretty quiet news wise. Barring any major developments, that concludes the live blogging for today.
Good morning. The main news overnight was the result of talks between Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko and Didier Burkhalter, Swiss president and current chairman of the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). In short, more drones and more monitors.
Kyiv has accused pro-Russian separatists of jeopardizing Ukraine’s fragile peace process by intensifying attacks on government troops, despite a nine-day old cease-fire.
National Security and Defense Council spokesman Volodymyr Polyovy made the accusations on September 14, a day after Ukraine’s military said it repelled a separatist attack on Donetsk airport.
Polyovy’s remarks also come a day after Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk called on world leaders not to trust Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying the Kremlin wants to “eliminate” Ukraine as an independent country.
Yatsenyuk said Putin is deliberately trying to keep Ukraine in a state of war to create “another frozen conflict” as part of a long-term strategy to “restore the Soviet Union.”
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) says more international monitors and drone observation aircraft will be deployed in eastern Ukraine to monitor the skaky cease-fire.
Continuing from yesterday, still fighting around Donetsk airport: