Here's another item from our news desk:
Russian Man Jailed For Joining Ukrainian Forces
A court in Russia has jailed a Russian man for fighting against Kremlin-backed separatists in Ukraine's eastern region of Donetsk.
The Russian Investigative Committee said on August 30 that a court in the Kirov region found a 24-year-old local resident guilty of fighting as a mercenary for a foreign country and sentenced him to 2 1/2 years in jail.
The man, whose identity was not disclosed, was detained after returning to Russia's Kirov region in September 2015. He had been fighting alongside Ukrainian armed forces against pro-Russian separatists for more than six months.
Fighting between Ukrainian government forces and Russia-backed separatists in Ukraine's eastern regions of Luhansk and Donetsk has killed more than 9,500 people since April 2014.
There have been numerous reports that many volunteers and mercenaries from former Soviet republics are fighting on both sides of the conflict.
Based on reporting by Interfax and RIA
Here is today's map of the latest situation in the Donbas conflict zone, according to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry (CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE):
Photographer Chris Collison has given us this gallery of images looking at the plight of miners on eastern Ukraine:
The Strife Of Eastern Ukraine's Coal Miners
Ukraine’s state-run coal mines are in crisis. Two years of war and political upheaval in eastern Ukraine have led to plummeting production levels, with damage at many facilities due to fighting, and large-scale depopulation as residents flee the conflict with Russian-backed separatists. The few state-owned coal enterprises still running are fighting to survive.
It's been a couple of months since the workers at the state-owned "Ukraina" coal mine, in the country’s eastern region of Donetsk, received their full salaries. Spring wages are only now trickling in, leaving families without enough money for basic items.
