Internal Security News

• The downing of Malaysia Airlines jet MH17 in eastern Ukraine may constitute a "war crime", the UN human rights chief Navi Pillay said.
   
• For the second day running, fighting forced international experts to abandon plans to get to the site of the Malaysian airliner crash to conduct their investigation, officials and pro-Russian rebels said.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) There were reports that the Ukrainian army was attempting to free the area surrounding the MH17 crash site in Donetsk from separatist control. The National Security and Defense Council stated that the Ukrainian military does not carry out strikes against populated areas, nor conduct any hostilities at the crash site of the Malaysian Boeing 777 in the east of the Donetsk region.
   
• Eight civilians were injured, three of them fatally, as a result of hostilities in Donetsk in the early hours of July 28.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) Militias in the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic killed 23 Ukrainian army troops over the past 24 hours.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) Ukrainian troops took control of the town of Debaltseve in Donetsk region and the Savur-Mohyla heights, from which illegal armed groups constantly shelled the positions of Ukrainian law enforcers. Troops also entered Shakhtarsk and Torez in Donetsk region and Lutuhyne in Luhansk region. Fighting was underway for the complete liberation of Pervomaisk in Luhansk region and Snizhne in Donetsk region, and troops were preparing to liberate Horlivka in Donetsk as well.
   
• A UN reported announced that as many as 1,129 civilians have been killed and 3,442 injured in Ukraine since the beginning of the anti-terrorist operation in mid-April 2014 until July 26.
   
• (RIA Novosti) A UN report released by High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay acknowledged that both Ukrainian forces and separatists are employing heavy weaponry in Ukraine’s eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.
   
• A commission investigating the causes of the Boeing 777 air crash in the Donetsk region said that according to the data from the flight recorders, the breakdown and fall of the plane was caused by "a massive explosive decompression" as a result of multiple fragment impact from the missile explosion.
   
• The attacks on Luhansk damaged the power lines supplying power to the city from the Kamianobridsky district and the city was fully without power.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) The defense minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, Igor Strelkov, said that he ordered commanders and soldiers of militia forces not to fire on Ukrainian servicemen raising white flags or otherwise indicating surrender.
   

Diplomacy News

• (RIA Novosti) Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov reproached western countries for their lack of political proposals to resolve the crisis in Ukraine, saying they are merely making demands of Russia and threatening sanctions.
   
• (RIA Novosti) Lavrov stated that Moscow hopes the Kyiv government will launch negotiations with eastern Ukraine’s “independence supporters” soon.
   
• (RIA Novosti) The delivery of lethal arms to Kyiv “would directly pour oil on the fire and urge on Kyiv’s warring instinct,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.
   
• Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Russia will talk to no one regarding Crimea.
   
• Lavrov also stated that Russia will not impose tit-for-tat measures or act "hysterically" over Western economic sanctions, which would not achieve their goal and only make Russia more economically independent.
   
• Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said that the space images posted by the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt, ostensibly attesting to Ukrainian army units being shelled from Russian territory, cannot be accepted as evidence.
   
• Japan's top government spokesman said that the country is stepping up sanctions against Russia over the unrest in Ukraine.
   

Governance News

• The proposed government amendments to Ukraine's state budget for 2014 envisage the allocation of Hr 1.9 billion as additional funding for Ukrainian security forces engaged in the anti-terrorist operation, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said.

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