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Nine people are feared dead after self-defense forces in the Donetsk region shot down a Ukrainian army helicopter, which was used for transporting military cargo, a Kiev spokesman said. The Mi-8 helicopter was downed “at about 5 pm local time at Karachun Mountain near Slavyansk by a rocket fired from a portable air defense system,” eastern Ukraine military operation spokesman, Vladislav Seleznyov, wrote on his Facebook page. “There were nine people aboard the helicopter. According to preliminary information, all those aboard died in the crash,” he said, adding that the helicopter was returning to a Ukrainian checkpoint after a cargo...

A Ukrainian Antonov An-30 reconnaissance aircraft has been shot down by militia and presumably fallen a few kilometers to the east of the eastern Ukrainian city of Sloviansk in the Donetsk Region, a militia spokesman said Friday. “A Ukrainian reconnaissance plane made circles all day. Militiamen shot it causing an engine to catch fire. After that, it turned back and flew beyond the city’s boundaries,” the militia spokesman said, adding that there is no place for landing in the radius of several kilometers. “A pillar of black smoke is rising above the presumed place where the plane fell,” he added....

Censor.net reports that Yuri Lelyavsky, a journalist who was abducted by separatists in Slavyansk on April 25, has been freed. They report that Lelyavsky gave a press conference in his home town of Lviv on Monday. They report (translated by The Interpreter): According to him, militants abducted him on April 25, a few hours after his arrival in the town, and detained him for 15 days, reports Censor.NET with reference to Podrobnosti. "All that time I was in the basement of the SBU building. They kept me in a common room for the first few ours, but they then moved...

Fox News reported yesterday that Kiev is sending an "elite National Guard" to Odessa, and today the International Business Times reported that Kiev is sending an "elite National Guard" to Slavyansk. Who makes up the ranks of this elite National Guard when Vice News reported on March 19, 2014 - in their article "A look Inside Ukraine's Volunteer National Guard" - and in it said then that Ukraine had - by its own admission - only 6,000 combat-ready troops? Looks like Kiev didn't/doesn't have a pot to even... much less an "elite National Guard." BTW, Vice News was the news...

The helicopter downed earlier today was hit by an RPG while it was hovering at <100 feet. This video is too far away to tell what hit it, but it's clear there is some heavy fighting in the area. This brings the total of Helicopters downed over Slovyansk to four.

There were fatalities among both Kiev loyalists and local militia members after governmental troops renewed their crackdown on the defiant eastern Ukrainian protester stronghold of Slavyansk. The death toll may be over 20. There was a shooting on the outskirts of Slavyansk as pro-government troops raided a protester checkpoint on Monday. A militia HQ spokesman as many as 20 fighters of the self-defense troops may have been killed in the latest clashes, according to Interfax. Slavyansk city hospital reported admitting seven injured during the morning. Two of them, suffering from gunshot wounds, died in hospital. The Ukrainian Interior Ministry said...

The rebel leader spread a topographic map in front of a closed grocery store here as a Ukrainian military helicopter flew past a nearby hill. Ukrainian troops had just seized positions along a river, about a mile and a half away. The commander thought they might advance. He issued orders with the authority of a man who had seen many battles. “Go down to the bridge and set up the snipers,” the leader, who gave only a first name, Yuri, said to a former Ukrainian paratrooper, who jogged away. Yuri commands the 12th Company, part of the self-proclaimed People’s Militia...

Russian president’s envoy Vladimir Lukin cannot reach the town of Slavyansk in Ukraine’s southeastern Donetsk region because the Ukrainian army units and Right Sector radicals, who blocked access roads to the town, do not allow him to come to the town, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Friday. According to the ministry, Lukin is currently in Donetsk and is ready to promptly leave for Slavyansk to have talks on the release of captured military observers from a number of European countries. “A preliminary agreement has been reach with the heads of Slavyansk that European officers will be able to leave...

Theses photos [at URL] purport to show the same bearded Russian soldier (circled) in operation in Georgia in 2008 and Kramatorsk and Sloviansk in 2014 Photos released by the Ukranian government as "proof" of Russian soldiers on the ground in Donetsk leave many questions to be answered... The low-quality, annotated images were handed to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe on 16 April, as evidence that Russian "sabotage-reconnaissance groups" had been working with separatists in the Donetsk towns of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk. According to a NYT article, the photos and their descriptions were "endorsed by the Obama administration"....

A collection of photographs that Ukraine says shows the presence of Russian forces in the eastern part of the country, and which the United States cited as evidence of Russian involvement, has come under scrutiny. The photographs were submitted by Ukraine last week to the Organization for Security and Cooperation, an organization in Vienna that has been monitoring the situation in Ukraine. Some of the photographs were also provided by American officials to Secretary of State John Kerry so he could show them when he met in Geneva last Thursday with his counterparts from the European Union, Russia, and Ukraine....

Soldier Says Ukrainian Unit Switched to Pro-Russian Side, But Can't Be Confirmed SLOVYANSK, Ukraine—An armored column of military vehicles flying a Russian flag and carrying dozens of heavily armed fighters motored into this eastern Ukrainian city early Wednesday, a day after the Ukrainian army launched an operation to clear out pro-Russian separatists who had taken control of cities in the region. It wasn't immediately clear whether the men were Russian soldiers or local militants who had gotten their hands on military vehicles. A soldier on one of the vehicles said the unit was part of the 25th brigade of Ukraine's...