Here's another item from RFE/RL's news desk:
Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused an embattled consumer rights group that has cautioned Russians against traveling to Crimea of "serving the interests of foreign states."
Putin was speaking on June 23 at a session of Russia's Public Chamber, a Kremlin advisory body, a day after Russia's state media watchdog announced that it had blocked the website of the Society for the Protection of Consumer Rights.
The Prosecutor-General's Office, meanwhile, has launched a probe against the nongovernmental organization, which is on the Justice Ministry's list of foreign agents.
The group published a notice last week warning Russians of potential problems if they travel to the "occupied territory" of Crimea, which it said is still a part of Ukraine according to international agreements.
The group's chairman, Mikhail Anshakov, said the memo was released following multiple complaints from Russians unable to get a Schengen visa after travelling to the Black Sea peninsula, which Russia annexed in March 2014.
(AFP, AP)
And now for something completely different... (We liked the cake-cutting bit at the end):
Residents of Ukraine's central Cherkasy region didn't let the conflict to the east interfere with a bit of fun during their fourth annual Tractor Fest. Farmers and others in the village of Yablunivka showed off their skills maneuvering farm equipment as they raced to stack hay bales, balanced on two wheels, and sliced cake with machine-operated tools. (RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service)
Here's an item from our news desk on the latest diplomatic maneuvers concerning Ukraine:
Foreign ministers from Russia, Ukraine, Germany, and France have started talks in Paris on ways to halt the 15-month war in eastern Ukraine.
Fighting between Ukrainian government forces and pro-Russian separatists has killed more than 6,400 people in Ukraine's Donetsk and Luhansk regions since April 2014.
A German- and French-brokered cease-fire deal signed in Minsk in February has proven extremely shaky, with sporadic clashes continuing in parts of the conflict zone.
Ahead of the closed-door meeting on June 23, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said recent deaths show that "the cease-fire isn't just fragile but that the daily violations are becoming more frequent."
"Without a cease-fire, all the other factors won't come together," he warned.
(AFP, TASS, Interfax)
We are now closing the live blog for today. Until we resume again tomorrow morning, you can keep up with all our latest Ukraine coverage here.