From RFE/RL's News Desk:
Kyiv and pro-Russian rebels traded accusations over deadly attacks in eastern Ukraine as uncertainty clouded plans for new peace talks.
The city administration in Donetsk, one of two separatist-held provincial capitals, said five people were killed when shells hit a cultural center on January 30 and that two others were killed when a shell hit a trolleybus.
The Ukrainian military said that five of its soldiers were killed and 23 wounded in the previous 24 hours.
It said rebels used mortars, rockets, and artillery in attacks on government positions at Debaltseve, a key junction between Donetsk and Luhansk, and in the vicinity of the strategic Azov Sea coastal city of Mariupol.
Fighting has escalated this month in the conflict, which has killed more than 5,100 people since April.
Belarus said on January 29 that representatives of Ukraine, Russia, the rebels, and the OSCE would meet in the capital, Minsk, on January 30 for talks aimed at ending the conflict.
But Interfax news agency quoted a Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying there was no final decision on a meeting and consulations were continuing.
From our newsroom on the $3 billion plum contract that has gone to a Putin ally:
The Russian government has awarded the contract for the construction of a $3 billion bridge to Crimea to a longtime ally of President Vladimir Putin.
The government on January 30 published a decree on its website naming the Stroygazmontazh (SGM) company as the contractor to build a bridge linking Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that Moscow annexed from Ukraine in March, with Russia over the Kerch Strait.
SGM is owned by Arkady Rotenberg, a childhood friend and longtime judo partner of Putin's.
Rotenberg is barred from entering or holding assets in the United States and European Union under sanctions imposed over Russia's interefence in Ukraine.
The government decree said the cost of the bridge cannot exceed 212 billion rubles ($3 billion) and the project must be completed by December 2018.
The contract was awarded without a public tender.
Based on reporting by Reuters and AP
Pro-Kyiv Euromaidan PR is quick to blame the reported incident on "RU #terrorist."