This ends our live blogging for August 12. Be sure to check back tomorrow for our continuing coverage.
Ukraine reports intense battles near Mariupol:
Ukraine has reported intense battles with pro-Russian separatists near the government-held coastal city of Mariupol on the Sea of Azov.
A military spokesman in Kyiv said on August 12 that clashes north of the strategic city of Mariupol had killed one soldier and injured three.
The pro-Russian rebels said a civilian had died in a different part of the area.
A resident in a village located halfway between Donetsk and Mariupol told AFP exchanges of heavy mortar and rocket fire began on August 10 and had not stopped since.
The latest battles are focused on a highway that connects Mariupol with the rebels' de facto capital, Donetsk.
The majority of the road is now under the control of government forces.
The OSCE has reported increased cease-fire violations in areas east and north of Mariupol.
In recent days Ukraine and pro-Russian separatists have traded accusations of attempting to break a cease-fire deal that was agreed in Minsk six months ago.
On August 10, the Ukrainian military reported the heaviest shelling by pro-Russian separatists since the Minsk truce was signed in February.
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. (AFP, Reuters)
AFP: Ukraine bans dozens of 'fascist' Russian books
Kiev, Aug 12, 2015 (AFP) - Kiev's public relations war with Moscow scaled new heights Wednesday with Ukraine releasing a list of Russian reporters and authors whose books will be banned for sale.
Ukraine's tax and budget service said 38 works by such Russian media celebrities such as Sergei Dorenko and award winning author Eduard Limonov were targeted under the ban.
The original request to seize the works was made in July by the state media committee -- the organisation that had earlier forbidden the broadcast of Russian movies and TV series that allegedly misrepresented or disparaged Ukrainian history.
The media watchdog accused the listed Russians of "promoting fascism" and "humiliating and insulating a nation and its people".
The authors were also accused of "promoting war, racial and religious strife... and threatening the territorial integrity of Ukraine."
A spokeswoman for the Ukrainian tax and customs service told AFP on Wednesday that the new regulation was immediately affective.
Most of the people listed have appeared on Russian television throughout the course of Ukraine's separatist crisis to defend Moscow's annexation of Crimea in March 2014.
Some of them have also branded as "neo-Nazis" the pro-Western leaders who emerged in the wake of the February 2014 ouster in Kiev of a Moscow-backed president.
The subsequent pro-Kremlin uprising that broke out in Ukraine's Russian-speaking east has claimed the lives of more than 6,800 people and sunk Moscow's relations with the West to a post-Cold War low.
But it has also created furious battles in Ukraine and Russia for the hearts and minds of both local and global audiences.
The propaganda campaigns have been accompanied by state-sponsored censorship and crackdowns on independent artists in both countries.
Ukraine has forbidden several Russian singers from performing in Kiev-controlled towns and cities.
Performances by popular Ukrainian rock groups have also been cancelled in some Russian venues without a formal explanation.