National security council secretary Andriy Parubiy said Friday that Ukrainian forces are still attacking rebel positions with artillery and planes. He said 17 villages had been secured by government forces since a unilateral cease fire expired Monday.
He said Ukrainian forces now control 23 of 36 local regions within Donetsk and Luhansk provinces, two regions along the Russian border that have declared independence from the government in Kiev.
The rebels are still fighting back. Rebels shelled the Donetsk airport overnight and an AP news hound said a radar or communications tower there was still burning in the morning.
Putin tells Obama he wants better ties, equal treatment
President Vladimir Putin
...Second and fourth President and sixth of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead...called for an improvement in ties between Russia and the United States on Friday in an Independence Day message to Barack Obama
I inhaled. That was the point...
, urging Washington to treat Moscow as an equal partner.
Relations between the two presidents and countries are at a low ebb following disagreements over the conflicts in Ukraine and Syria, and over human rights
One man's rights are another man's existential threat.
, democracy and defence matters.
"The head of the Russian state expressed hope that ... ties between the two countries will develop successfully on the basis of pragmatism and equality despite difficulties and disagreements," the Kremlin said in a statement, outlining a telegram sent to Obama on the July 4 holiday.