An excerpt:
As Kiev prepared to host the final of Eurovision Song Contest earlier this month, 700km away in eastern Ukraine Yelena Aslanova was holding her own modest party.
She had returned from the capital to spend the weekend in her hometown, Avdiivka, to check on her house and catch up with friends during an apparent lull in a three-year war between government troops and Russian-backed separatists.
Aslanova planned to spend the Saturday evening with her son and three friends in the leafy yard of her small home. Inside, her daughter Zhenya (7) watched cartoons with Sasha (4), the daughter of one of her guests, Maria Dikaya.
Just after 7pm, when in Kiev street parties and laser shows were launching a night of the lightest entertainment, a shell landed in Aslanova’s garden.
“Arms, legs and heads were scattered around the yard. Not a single body was left in one piece,” said Yevgeny Kaplin, the leader of the Proliska aid group whose members were quickly on the scene.
Russia investigating Ukrainian military "shelling civilians in southeastern Ukraine":
Here's today's map of the security situation in eastern Ukraine, according to the National Security and Defense Council:
