From Ukraine's foreign affairs minister:
Hmm...
And here's an item from our news desk on John Kerry's talks with Sergei Lavrov in Moscow today:
Kerry, Lavrov Hold Moscow Talks
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has condemned the "incredible carnage" in the attack in Nice, France, and said that Syria is currently the world’s foremost "hotbed for terrorists."
Kerry made the statements on July 15 as he sat down for a meeting with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov.
Kerry also said his talks the previous day with Russian President Vladimir Putin had been "productive" and serious.
Also speaking in Moscow on July 15, Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Kerry and Putin did not discuss possible direct military cooperation in Syria.
"They discussed different cooperation formats," Peskov said.
For his part, Lavrov said it is necessary to "continue the conversation we began yesterday," adding that the Kerry-Putin meeting had been “useful.”
Kerry also said he and Putin had discussed the conflict in Ukraine, saying Moscow and Washington have "unresolved issues" over the matter.
Kerry and Lavrov are also expected to discuss the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the breakaway Azerbaijani region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Based on reporting by Reuters, Interfax, and TASS
A tweet from the OSCE representative on media freedom about the listing of Crimean journalists as "extremist."
A report claiming that some elderly Crimeans are now having part of their pensions paid in toilet paper:
The Kyiv Post has published a gripping account of life in the embattled Donbas town of Avdiyivka. Here's an excerpt:
Residents Of Avdiyivka Stay Put Under Fire
Yury Shevchenko hasn’t left Avdiyivka for more than two years, even though the Donetsk Oblast city of 35,000 people is battered by shelling almost every month and often cut off from water, heating and transport.
Just one thing stopped this 63-year-old man from leaving one of the hottest spots of Russia’s war in eastern Ukraine: his passion for pigeons.
Every day Shevchenko feeds 50 pigeons that he keeps in a metal hut in the yard of his apartment building.
“How can I leave them? I’ve been devoted to them all my life,” Shevchenko said, cradling a small pigeon chick in his hand.
Fighting rages every day not far off in the industrial suburbs of Avdiyivka, 780 kilometers southeast of Kyiv and 22 kilometers away from separatist-held Donetsk.
The locals no longer pay much attention to the daily din of gunfire and shelling, but animals in the city cannot ignore the sounds of war. When they hear shelling, Shevchenko’s pigeons get scared and try to hide, the man said.
Toll of war
Traces of damage from shelling can be seen on almost every building, and every resident knows someone who was killed in the war.
By Avdiyivka’s city hall there is a big black slab with a pile of shell fragments and flowers underneath. There are nine photos of city residents, men and women, glued to the slab, which bears the words: “Dedicated to those killed in this ‘undeclared war.’”
But these nine represent only a small fraction of the number of war victims here.
Read the entire article here