Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko called the visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to annexed Crimea a "challenge to the civilized world" and an aggravation of the military situation in Eastern Ukraine.
“Such trips mean further militarization of the occupied Ukrainian peninsula and lead to its greater isolation,” the presidential spokesman quoted Poroshenko as saying.
Poroshenko said that Crimea has a future only as a part of Ukraine.
Putin came to Crimea on August 17 to chair a meeting of the presidium of the so-called State Council of Crimea about the development of tourism in Russia.
According to the press office of the Russian government, the country’s Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev is visiting Crimea as well. Medvedev plans to meet the participants of the all-Russian youth educational forum "Tavrida."
According to this tweet, three T-72 tanks were spotted in Donetsk moving towards the center around 11 a.m. local time.
Responding to Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s statement about Russia’s head of state Vladimir Putin visiting Crimea, a Twitter account named “Russian Donetsk” wrote:
"He should better be worried about the imminent visit of Motorola to Mariupol."
"Motorola" is nom de guerre of a separatist commander Arseny Pavlov, who earlier this year told the Kyiv Post newspaper he had killed 15 captured Ukrainian soldiers.
Ukrainian port city Mariupol and its suburbs experienced heavy fighting in the early hours of August 17. At least two civilians are reported dead, six more are injured.
In today's Daily Vertical, Brian Whtmore suggests that the uptick in hostilities in eastern Ukraine could be part of a big Russian psyop:
RFE/RL's Current Time has sent us this video:
In eastern Ukraine, artillery shells rained down on homes in the outskirts of Donetsk. The area was under control of Russia-backed separatists, but it was not clear who fired amid the increasingly heavy barrages with Ukrainian government forces.
Ukraine's Foreign Ministry hits out over Crimea tourism:
“Mass tourism of Russian leadership to Crimea is the only attempt to support tourism on the peninsula,” the Foreign Ministry wrote on its official Twitter-feed.
“Nobody else would visit the temporarily occupied territory, which is under sanctions, in their right mind,” it added.
During the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine, 6,832 people have died and 17,087 have been injured, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in a statement dated August 14 and published today.
The figures do not distinguish between military and civilian casualties. They are based on calculations done by the UN Mission on Human Rights in Ukraine and the World Health Organization.
According to the report, around 2.3 million people had to leave their homes in the conflict area for other regions in Ukraine or abroad.
The shelling of the Mariupol suburbs early this morning, which killed two people and injured six, is being officially called a "terrorist attack" in Ukraine. The Donetsk prosecutor’s office began the necessary proceedings today, said Ukrainian military spokesman Andriy Lysenko at a press conference.
According to him, separatists were deliberately shelling residential areas, and not the positions of the Ukrainian troops.
Barring any major developments, that ends the live blogging for today.