LIVE UPDATES BELOW.
Yesterday’s live coverage of the Ukraine conflict can be found here.
- READ OUR SPECIAL REPORT:
An Invasion By Any Other Name: The Kremlin’s Dirty War in Ukraine
The Russian-backed separatist authorities in Donetsk have deported the editor of a critical regional newspaper from Russia.
Denis Kamalyagin, editor-in-chief of Pskovskaya Guberniya, was deported to Russia from the territory controlled by the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) on Sunday, MR7.ru reports.
Aleksandr Zakharov, the former director of the paper, tweeted:
Translation: At this moment the editor-in-chief of Pskovskaya Guberniya, Denis Kamalyagin, is being deported from the territory of the DNR. They came to his hotel at 6 this morning. Seized his data storage devices.
Lev Shlosberg, the founder of the paper and former legislator for the Pskov region who was assaulted after he reported on the deaths of Russian paratroopers in Ukraine, told MR7.ru this afternoon that the editor was now safe and onboard a train to Moscow.
Kamalyagin had been in the Donetsk region since March 10. According to the ‘Ministry of State Security’, he lacked the proper accreditation to work in the DNR as a journalist.
The editor, who said that he was not mistreated by the separatist security forces, believes that Pskovskaya Guberniya‘s critical coverage of the war in Ukraine was the reason for his deportation.
— Pierre Vaux
Svyatoslav Tsegolko, President Petro Poroshenko’s press secretary, writes on his Facebook page this afternoon that the President has suggested two names to replace the beleaguered incumbent prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenuk.
According to Tsegolko, Poroshenko is holding a meeting with party leaders today to resolve the current political crisis by forming a new governing coalition.
The President has proposed to scenarios, the first of which would be a “technocratic government,” headed by the finance minister, Natalie Jaresko.
The second, “political government” would be led by Andriy Sadovyi, mayor of Lviv and leader of the Samopomich party.
Samopomich left the coalition last month, following a failed vote of no-confidence in Yatsenyuk.
Meanwhile Tsegolko said that the President was willing to work with any other candidates proposed by the coalition or who gathered sufficient votes in parliament.
One Ukrainian soldier has been killed and another wounded as Kiev claims that Russian-backed fighters conducted 44 attacks over 24 hours.
According to this morning’s ATO Press Centre report, the worst fighting was seen near Donetsk and Gorlovka.
To the north the separatist-held regional capital, the Ukrainian military claims that Russian-backed fighters shelled positions near Avdeyevka with 18 rounds from 122 mm artillery.
Mortars were used 20 times, near not only Avdeyevka, which saw 9 such attacks, but also Verkhnetoretskoye, Novgorodskoye, Mayorsk, Zaytsevo and, in the Lugansk region, Novotoshkovskoye.
Grenade launchers, heavy machine guns and small arms were used in attacks across the front line, from Marinka, west of Donetsk, where the Ukrainian military reports that a key civilian crossing checkpoint was attacked last night, to Troitskoye, east of Bakhmut (formerly Artyomovsk).
According to military spokesman Aleksandr Kindsfater, Russian-backed fighters also used ZU-23-2 anti-aircraft artillery to attack positions near Marinka, while to the south, grenade launchers and machine guns were used to attack positions near Novotroitskoye, on the highway towards Mariupol, and Starognatovka, near the banks of the River Kalmius.
Meanwhile, the ‘defence ministry’ of the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) claims that Ukrainian forces conducted 67 attacks over the same period.
According to the DNR, Ukrainian forces fired 10 tank rounds, as well as 120 122 mm and 105 82 mm mortar rounds on the northern and western outskirts of Donetsk.
— Pierre Vaux