Here is today's map of the security situation in eastern Ukraine, according to the National Security and Defense Council (CLICK TO ENLARGE):
Ukrainian Warplane Crashes During Training Flight
Ukraine’s Defense Ministry says a Ukrainian Air Force Sukhoi Su-25 military plane crashed during a training flight near Zaporizhzhya on November 11, killing the 23-year-old pilot.
A Defense Ministry spokesman did not specify the cause of the crash.
The Soviet-era SU-25 aircraft was designed during the 1970s to provide close air support for ground forces.
It has been used repeatedly by the Ukrainian Air Force against pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine since the conflict began there in 2014.
Several SU-215s used by Ukrainian government forces have been shot down by pro-Russian separatists in the conflict.
Pro-Russian separatists also have indirectly acknowledged their use of the warplane against Ukrainian forces during fighting near Debaltsevo in February 2015.
Based on reporting by TASS and Interfax
In Eastern Ukraine, A Young Life Shattered
By Christian Borys
KYIV/MARIUPOL -- On the grass outside an old Soviet-era military hospital, tucked on a side street in the capital, Kyiv, Ukrainian soldiers in camo-patterned jackets and fur hats puff on cigarettes and share laughs.
Their banter reflects the current lull in the fight against Russian-backed separatists hundreds of kilometers to the east, where a shaky cease-fire is holding despite occasional flare-ups and no sign of a lasting solution.
But just a few steps away, in a medical building surrounded by the nearly leafless trees of autumn, lies a tragic example of one of the legacies of war that could haunt Ukraine well into its future.
Eleven-year-old Mykola Nyzhnyakovskyy -- Kolya to his mom and friends -- is straining to scratch the itching wounds from shrapnel embedded in what's left of his legs. He is using his left hand, the one that remains.
His mother, 38-year-old Alla Nyzhnyakovska, caresses his head and tries to put a brave face on his situation since the day two months ago when an unexploded munition shattered three of Kolya's limbs and killed his 4-year-old brother, Danylo, instantly.
"I'm showing him pictures of soldiers who've lost their limbs but manage to live normal lives now," she says as she flashes a photo of a man with two prosthetic legs holding a baby. "I want him to know that he still has a life ahead of him, that there is hope to start a family and live a normal life."
It is just one facet of the 20-month-old conflict paralyzing the country since a separatism-fueled war erupted in eastern Ukraine. But unlike the shooting, it threatens to keep killing well beyond the end of the fighting.
Read the full story here.
Ukraine's Azov Regiment Opens Boot Camp For Kids
Children in Ukraine's Sumy region can attend a boot camp where they learn basic military skills like running an obstacle course and handling weapons. The camp was set up by members of the Azov Regiment, a former volunteer unit, who teach young Ukrainians to defend their country -- while also exposing them to the regiment's far right-wing ideology. (Olga Kalenichenko, RFE/RL's Current Time TV)
