Internal Security News

• Ukrainian government forces were preparing for the final stage of recapturing the city of Donetsk from pro-Russian separatist rebels after making significant gains that divided rebel forces.

   

• The situation in Luhansk remained unchanged - the regional capital had no power or water supplies for the ninth day, and neither landline nor mobile communications operated, the press service of the Luhansk City Council reported.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) Luhansk was “on the verge of survival” due to its isolation, according to city officials.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) The military operation in east Ukraine will not be stopped, and it will be best if residents leave Donetsk and Luhansk, a spokesman for the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC), said.
   
• Five artillery shells hit a high-security prison on the outskirts of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine overnight, sparking a riot in which 106 inmates escaped.
   
• Ukrainian military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said if the rebels wanted a ceasefire this meant "raising white flags and putting down their guns". There would be no truce while the Ukrainian army continued "punitive" military action, the rebels retorted in a statement.
   
• Radical nationalist group Right Sector seized an infantry fighting vehicle and a T-64 tank from separatists in the Donetsk region and was forming an armored unit as part of its military corps, Right Sector leader Dmytro Yarosh said.

Diplomacy News

• NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen said he saw a "high probability" that Russia could intervene militarily in eastern Ukraine and that NATO saw no sign that Moscow was pulling back its forces from close to the Ukrainian border.
   
• EU and US leaders warned Russia that more sanctions will follow if it "invades" Ukraine in the name of "humanitarian" aid.
   
• (RIA Novosti) Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that the Kyiv government’s military operation in eastern Ukraine seems to be aimed at “razing the southeast to the ground” and forcing the Russian-speaking population to flee.
   
• (RIA Novosti) Russia and the International Committee of the Red Cross are sending a convoy with humanitarian cargo to eastern Ukraine, the Kremlin press service said.
  Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called on the West not to impede the delivery of the ‘urgent’ humanitarian aid. "Hopefully, this humanitarian action will take place soon under the aegis of the International Committee of the Red Cross. We have agreed all the details with the Ukrainian authorities. I hope that our Western partners will avoid putting up obstacles,” Lavrov said.
   
• EU chief Jose Manuel Barroso told Russia's Vladimir Putin not to carry out unilateral military action in eastern Ukraine under any pretext. The two leaders spoke over the phone as the Kremlin announced it was working with the Red Cross on sending a humanitarian aid convoy to the region.
   
• Earlier in the day, Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Russia will only send humanitarian aid to Ukraine if all involved parties agree to the move.
   
• A humanitarian convoy accompanied by Russian military personnel and military vehicles advanced toward the Ukrainian border with the intention of crossing into the country late on Aug. 8, but it stopped short of the frontier, a senior Ukrainian official said.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) The completion of exercises in Russia has not led to the de-escalation of the situation on the Ukrainian-Russian border, the speaker of the information-analytical center of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine (NSDC) stated.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) About 15 Ukrainian shells exploded in Russia’s southern Rostov region some 500 metres from the border with Ukraine.
   
• Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko spoke with U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden on the phone, discussing possible humanitarian aid for Luhansk. Poroshenko also indicated to German Chancellor Angela Merkel that he was willing to send a humanitarian mission to the city.
   
• Five Ukrainian army officers who crossed over to Russian territory and were later detained returned to Ukraine.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) The OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, Dunja Mijatovic, expressed concern about reports that Andrei Stenin, a photojournalist with the Rossiya Segodnya International Information Agency, went missing in eastern Ukraine on 5 August
   
• (ITAR-TASS) Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Russian sanctions imposed against EU were in line with the WTO rules and had been imposed for national security reasons.