Russia says Ukraine preparing new offensive against separatists

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Russia's foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said on Monday he suspected Ukraine was preparing a new offensive against pro-Moscow separatists in east Ukraine following an upsurge in fighting.

Clashes near the port city of Mariupol and the rebel-held town of Gorlivka have put further strain on a fragile ceasefire between Ukrainian government forces and the separatists.

"We are worried by the developments in recent days which strongly recall preparation for more military actions," Lavrov told a news conference, accusing Kiev of breaking the terms of a ceasefire.

"It was like that in August last year when Ukrainian soldiers received the order to attack. ... It was like that in January of this year. One shouldn't be experimenting and trying one's luck, one should simply fulfill what was agreed in Minsk."

http://in.reuters.com/article/2015/08/17/russia-ukraine-crisis-fighting-idINKCN0QM0ST20150817?rpc=401

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1. Civilians killed as fighting flares in eastern Ukraine

KIEV, Aug 17 (Reuters) - Fighting flared between Ukrainian government forces and Russian-backed separatists in two separate parts of eastern Ukraine overnight with several civilians killed by shelling, Ukrainian police and separatist sources said on Monday.

The clashes, near Mariupol in the southeast and at Gorlivka, a rebel-held town, formed part of an upsurge in violence which put further strain on a fragile ceasefire between the two sides.

Regional police in Mariupol, a port city on the Sea of Azov, said at least one man and a young woman were killed when rebels shelled the town of Sartan, about 20 km (12 miles) away on Sunday. Several people, including a 10-year-old girl, were taken to hospital with wounds.

"On one street there were five houses which had been really badly damaged by shell fragments. One house had a well-tended garden with vines and a vegetable patch. But the house had been wrecked by shells and I saw an enormous pool of blood," a local news photographer, Mykola Ryabchenko, told Reuters by telephone.

http://www.trust.org/item/20150817080958-y7gta/

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2. The U.S. Intelligence Community Keys in on the Russian ‘Troll Army’ Manipulating Social Media

When Facebook posts and tweets blamed Ukrainian rebels for downing a Malaysian jet there last year, U.S. spies studied social media trend lines to gauge public opinion of the Kiev-Moscow conflict.

The number of Facebook "likes”; statistics on retweets and "favorited” tweets; and other social media analytics told one story.

But intelligence officials know that, increasingly, autocracies are deploying "trolls" – robotic feeds or paid commentators – to sway social media trends. So officials say they were cautious when compiling situation assessments.

Such messaging can become dangerous when it casts doubt on ground truth.

http://www.nextgov.com/defense/2015/08/us-intelligence-community-keys-russian-troll-army-manipulating-social-media/119158/

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3. 50 Ukrainian Ducks Confiscated, Burned on Russian Border

Russian officials euthanized and then burned 50 ducklings being smuggled into the country from Ukraine, Zvezda TV channel reported Saturday.

"The ducklings did not have any accompanying documents, so a decision was made to destroy them," Svetlana Zaporozhchenko, head of the Belgorod region's branch of Rosselkhoznadzor agricultural watchdog, told the channel.

According to the report, the man transporting the fluffy cargo was a regular duckling smuggler who would purchase the hatchlings at a market in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv and then sell them in Russia, deliberately avoiding border checkpoints.

President Vladimir Putin signed a decree last month ordering the destruction of food originating from countries that introduced sanctions against Russia over the Ukraine crisis.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/50-ukrainian-ducks-confiscated-burned-on-russian-border/528029.html

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