Here's another superb photo gallery of Ukrainian troops holed up in abandoned mansions in the Donbas region:
Another update from our news desk:
Russian-backed separatists in Ukraine say they are prepared to pull back smaller-caliber weapons from much of the line of contact with Kyiv’s forces.
Aleksandr Zakharchenko, a self-proclaimed leader of the rebels operating in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, said on July 18 that his forces are ready to pull back tanks and armored vehicles outfitted with weapons under 100mm 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) from the front line.
A spokesman for the Donetsk separatists, Denis Pushilin, called the move a "unilateral step" ahead of a July 21 meeting of the Trilateral Contact Group in Minsk focused on the implementation of a February cease-fire.
Three civilians and one Ukrainian soldier have been reported killed over the past day in fighting in the country’s east. Ukrainian authorities and the rebels traded accusations of responsibility for the deaths.
More than 6,500 people have been killed since fighting between Ukrainian government forces and separatists erupted in April 2014.
Kyiv and the West accuse Russia backing the rebels, a charge Moscow denies despite mounting evidence of such support.
(AP, Interfax, AFP)
Much has been written about MH17 in recent days, but in terms of catching the sheer horror of that terrible event, Petr Shelomovskiy's photo gallery transcends all words:
RFE/RL investigative journalist Katya Gorchinskaya has been looking at how a senior prosecutor under Yanukovych has managed to sidestep lustration:
KYIV -- Ukrainian prosecutor Oleh Valendyuk should have been out of a job last fall, the victim of a lustration law meant to clear away members of former President Viktor Yanukovych's team after his ouster at the hands of pro-European protesters.
Instead, Valendyuk holds a higher position than ever: he is the top prosecutor in the capital, Kyiv.
His story is a case study in the government's struggles to put the corruption-riddled past behind it and start with a clean slate, setting the stage for reforms needed to improve the nation's economy and make it less vulnerable to Russia.
The position he held before the Euromaidan protests toppled Yanukovych in February 2014 put Valendyuk squarely in the ranks of officials subject to lustration and barred from holding public office under a law adopted in September.
But Valendyuk used his connections, his 18 years of experience, and his intimate knowledge of Ukraine's graft-marred legal system to win an exception.
And he did it in just three business days.
Read the entire article here