Our Ukrainian Service will be live-streaming a march in the capital, Kyiv, by the nationalist Right Sector group.
Our Ukrainian Service reports on the ceremony in which more than 5,000 Ukrainian troops completed basic training at a military firing range near the western city of Lviv on Tuesday. The average age of the recruits, some of whom are volunteers while others have been mobilized, is 40. They will be sent for further training before eventually being deployed to the conflict zone.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius speaking to France Info radio, in Paris, today.
"We've told the Russians clearly that if there was an attack by separatists in the direction of Mariupol, things would be drastically altered, including in terms of sanctions."
"I very clearly tell my Russian colleague, Mr. [Foreign Minister Sergei] Lavrov, it would mean that at a European level the question of sanctions would be asked again."
In today's Daily Vertical, Brian Whitmore wonders what the West can do, faced with an unreliable negotiating partner like Vladimir Putin. And if it adopts more drastic countermeasures to Moscow's meddling in Ukraine, will they have any effect?
NTV says its reporter Andrei Grigoriev has been detained in Kyiv.
More, from our newsroom, on the Russian court's dismissal of Ukrainian pilot Savchenko's request for release from pretrial detention:
A Moscow appeals court has rejected hunger-striking Ukrainian pilot Nadia Savchenko's challenge against an extension of her pretrial detention period, upholding a ruling ordered her held until May 13.
The Moscow City Court issued the decision on February 25.
Savchenko was captured by pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine in June and taken to Russia in July.
Russia has charged her with involvement in a mortar attack that killed two Russian journalists in the conflict between government forces and Russian-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine.
In January, Savchenko was additionally charged with illegal border crossing.
Savchenko denies the charges, saying that she was kidnapped on Ukrainian territory and illegally transferred to Russia.
She began a hunger strike on December 13.
Lawyers, relatives, and human rights activists have expressed increasing concern over health.
At the initial custody-extension hearing on February 10, a lawyer voiced concern that Savchenko may not survive until May 13 if she remains behind bars.
Russia has rejected Western calls for her release.
Based on reporting by rapsinews.ru and Interfax
TASS quotes separatists as sayinig that the bodies of four Ukrainian soldiers were retrieved from under the rubble of Donetsk airport, which fell into pro-Russian hands about a month ago after months of fierce battle. "Four [bodies of] servicemen have been retrieved," it quotes the self-styled defense spokesman for the rebel "Donetsk People's Republic," Eduard Basurin, as saying, "It is unclear yet how many of them there will be."
AP noted in its report that the bodies were found by Ukrainian prisoners-of-war in the hands of the pro-Russians.
Interfax and other sources say a grenade explosion at a shop in a Donetsk neighborhood killed one person and wounded two others. Here's video circulating of the scene, apparently soon after the blast.