Daily Ukraine Crisis Updates – August 20, 2014

(ITAR-TASS) Nine civilians were killed and 13 were wounded as two districts of the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk came under powerful artillery fire.
Ukrainian troops took control of a large part of the rebel stronghold in Luhansk.
(Interfax Ukraine) In the past 24 hours, clashes in Ukraine's Donetsk region claimed 34 civilian lives and injured other 29 people, the Donetsk regional state administration information policy and media department said.
(Interfax Ukraine) The Ukrainian army retook over half of the town of Ilovaisk, though fighting continued.
(Interfax Ukraine) The situation in Luhansk remained critical and fighting continued in the city, the press service for the Luhansk city council reported. "People have been without electricity, water, mobile and landline communications for 18 days. Power supply cannot be restored due to permanent military action on the territory of the city."
(ITAR-TASS) A senior rebel official claimed that the Ukrainian army fired a ballistic missile at the central part of the city of Makeyevka in the embattled eastern Donetsk region.
(Interfax Ukraine) An advisor to the Interior Ministry stated that a total of 2,717 police officers have been dismissed in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, and this process will continue.

(Interfax Ukraine) The National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine had no confirmation of reports that a Russian convoy of armored vehicles had entered Luhansk.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said that Moscow has done everything to guarantee the full security of the humanitarian convoy to residents of eastern Ukraine and favors a swift beginning to the mission.
(ITAR-TASS) The first eight trucks with Russian humanitarian aid for south-eastern regions of Ukraine began customs clearance procedures at the border crossing point with Ukraine in the southern Rostov region.
The warring sides in Ukraine had only provided safety guarantees for a small advance group of officers from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) that will inspect the purported itinerary of the Russian humanitarian convoy but the main group had yet to receive such guarantees in full.
(Interfax Ukraine) Verkhovna Rada chairman Oleksandr Turchynov alleged that the Russian authorities need an armed conflict in eastern Ukraine to divert the attention of Russians from the crisis in Russia itself.
(ITAR-TASS) The European Commission confirmed its plans to attend a Eurasian Customs Union-EU-Ukraine summit in Minsk on August 26.

Annie Cowan