Yesterday’s live coverage of the Ukraine conflict can be found here. An archive of our liveblogs can be found here. For an overview and analysis of this developing story see our latest podcast.
Please help The Interpreter to continue providing this valuable information service by making a donation towards our costs.
For links to individual updates click on the timestamps.
For the latest summary of evidence surrounding the shooting down of flight MH17 see our separate article: Evidence Review: Who Shot Down MH17?
The Ukrainian military’s ATO Press Centre claims that Russian-backed forces conducted 67 attacks yesterday, with fighting concentrated around the separatist-held city of Donetsk.
As usual, Ukrainian positions in Peski, Krasnogorovka and Avdeyevka came under fire last night from mortars and heavy artillery. But there was a noticeable shift in fighting to the north-east of Donetsk, along the Ukrainian lines towards Gorlovka.
The ATO Press Centre reports that Russian-backed forces shelled the villages of Novobakhmutovka and Troitskoye (not to be confused with the town in the Lugansk region) with 122 mm artillery at around 22:00.
Meanwhile the Ukrainian State Border Service announced that three of servicemen from the National Guard had been wounded at a crossroads near the villages of Keramik and Rozovka by shelling this morning.
Rozovka itself, the ATO Press Centre reports, was shelled with 152 mm artillery last night at around 21:35. The village of Druzhba, north of Gorlovka was also attacked with the same weapons.
One of the guardsmen was severely wounded, the other two have injuries of “medium severity.” All have been taken to hospital in Konstantinovka.
Two (presumably other) Ukrainian soldiers were wounded over the last 24 hours, announced military spokesman Andriy Lysenko today at noon.
In the south of the Donetsk region, Ukrainian positions in Starognatovka, east of Volnovakha, were shelled with 152 mm artillery in an attack that lasted from 21:35 to around midnight.
At 22:30, the village of Bogdanovka was shelled with 120 mm mortars and 152 mm artillery.
At around midnight, Ukrainian positions in the village of Prokhorovka were shelled twice with 152 mm artillery.
The Interior Ministry (MVD) says that at around 2 am today, a dairy farm in the village was shelled, killing one man, born in 1960.
The head of the Donetsk regional branch of the MVD, Vyacheslav Abroskin, announced on his Facebook page that a civilian man, born in 1950, had been killed this morning by an explosive device after setting off a tripwire by the Donetsk-Mariupol highway, between separatist-held Yelenovka and Ukrainian-held Beryozovoye.
Fighting carried on, with the ATO Press Centre reporting 152 mm artillery attacks at 4 am near Starognatovka, Lebedinskoye and Bogdanovka.
The Mariupol Defence Headquarters claimed this morning that, in addition to the locations mentioned above, the villages of Orlovkskoye and Novoselovka Vtoraya, as well as positions near Vinogradnoye had been shelled over the last 24 hours.
— Pierre Vaux