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An activist stops a lorry near the village of Chongar, in the Kherson region adjacent to Crimea.
An activist stops a lorry near the village of Chongar, in the Kherson region adjacent to Crimea.

Live Blog: Ukraine In Crisis (ARCHIVE)

Follow all of the latest developments as they happen.

Final Summary For September 21

-- NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has called on Russia to withdraw heavy weapons from eastern Ukraine.

-- No trucks have passed through the administrative border from mainland Ukraine to Crimea overnight, according to Oleh Slobodyan, the spokesperson for Ukraine’s State Border Service.

-- Hundreds of pro-Kyiv activists from Crimea's Tatar community and other opposition activists are taking part in the blockade of roads from Ukraine to the Crimean peninsula to protest Russia's annexation of the region last year.

-- The German government has criticized Russia for not distancing itself from plans by Russian-backed separatists to hold local elections in eastern Ukraine without consulting Kyiv.

*NOTE: Times are stated according to local time in Kyiv

11:12 11.8.2015

Then there's this:

10:11 11.8.2015

09:41 11.8.2015

Al Jazeera's Rory Challands reports from Maikop, in southern Russia, about the growing number of Russian deserters.

09:31 11.8.2015

Ukrainian youth talking about their "European future." Via the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv.

21:41 10.8.2015

Barring any major developments, that ends the live blogging for tonight.

20:29 10.8.2015

20:22 10.8.2015

More from our news desk on the fighting today:

One Ukrainian soldier was killed and nine injured in the latest clashes between Ukrainian armed forces and Russia-backed separatists in the Donetsk region, a Ukrainian military official says.

Vladyslav Seleznyov, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Armed Forces General Staff, said on August 10 that Ukrainian forces had managed to maintain control over the town of Starohnativka after a separatist attack.

Starohnativka is located about half way between separatist-held Donetsk and Kyiv-controlled Mariupol.

Mariupol sits along a key route linking parts of eastern Ukraine controlled by the rebels and Crimea, which was annexed by Russia in March, 2014.

Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, told reporters in Kyiv that up to 400 separatists supported by 10 tanks and 10 armored personnel carriers and other vehicles attacked Ukrainian positions overnight.

According to Lysenko, "the enemy suffered significant losses in personnel and equipment."

Lysenko described shelling by pro-Russian separatists in the past 24 hours as the heaviest since a battle for the town of Debaltseve in February.

Meanwhile, the de facto defense minister of the separatist Donetsk People's Republic, Eduard Basurin, says forces under his command stopped an attempt by Ukrainian forces to advance in the same area on August 10.

According to Basurin, Ukrainian forces lost two tanks, one armored personnel carrier, and a military truck with a missile on it.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko also announced that “about 200 insurgents” had staged a pre-dawn raid on Novolaspa, a village near the town of Starohnativka.

According to the presidency, Viktor Muzhenko, the chief of staff of the Ukrainian military, "informed the president that the Ukrainian forces gave a fitting rebuff and repelled all the attacks."

However, the Defense Ministry later reported the separatists were mounting a second attack on the same village, where the outcome was not immediately clear.

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said the clashes were “a dangerous indication of a further escalation to come.”

The rebels said Novolaspa had always been one of their frontline outposts and said the claims by Kyiv made no sense.

The pro-Russian separatists accused Kyiv of trying to gain back territory it lost in fighting.

More than 6,400 people have been killed in the military conflict between Ukrainian armed forces and pro-Russia separatists in parts of Ukraine's eastern regions of Luhansk and Donetsk since April, 2014.

A fragile cease-fire was negotiated in Minsk in February, but it is marred by daily violations.

18:50 10.8.2015

Another angle:

17:28 10.8.2015

17:15 10.8.2015

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has ordered Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin to hold “urgent consultations” with the foreign ministries involved in the Normandy talks (Russia, Germany, France) due to the escalation of fighting in Donbas.

Earlier today, the press center of Ukraine's Anti-Terrorist Operation stated that Ukrainian positions in the east have experienced the most intense shelling in weeks.

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