Kyiv says three soldiers killed:
The Ukrainian military says three of its soldiers have been killed and 14 wounded in fighting in the country’s east.
Military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said on June 18 that the casualties occurred during the previous 24 hours.
"Clashes aren't getting any less frequent and in certain parts they are turning into full-scale military operations," he added.
Fighting between Ukrainian government forces and rebels has killed more than 6,400 people in eastern Ukraine since April 2014.
In recent weeks, the sides have accused each other of increasing attacks despite a cease-fire agreement signed in Minsk in February. (Reuters, Interfax)
Here is today's map of the military situation in eastern Ukraine, according to the National Security and Defense Council:
LATEST: Ukrainian lawmakers have voted to dismiss Security Service chief Valentyn Nalyvaichenko. (AFP, Interfax)
Moscow threatens to extend food import ban if EU extends sanctions:
Russian Economic Development Minister Aleksei Ulyukayev has said Moscow will extend its embargo on European Union agricultural products if the bloc extends sanctions as expected.
Ulyukayev told RIA Novosti news agency on June 18, "We'll just keep the status quo: the embargo on produce introduced in response to the sanctions regime."
Asked if Russia might impose sanctions on other areas of EU imports, he said, "I think it's unlikely."
Last year, Moscow banned most dairy, meat, fish, fruit, and vegetable imports from the EU, the United States, and other countries which had imposed sanctions on Russia over its annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula and its alleged support for pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine.
The EU is expected to approve on June 22 a six-month extension of the economic sanctions hitting Russia's energy, financial, and military sector. (AFP, Sputnik)
Ukraine detains two suspects in pro-Russian journalist's killing:
Ukrainian authorities have detained two people suspected of involvement in the murder of journalist Oles Buzyna.
The Kyiv prosecutor's office said on June 18 that both suspects were residents of the capital. It also said they were aged 25 and 26.
The two are facing premeditated murder charges.
Buzyna, 45, was gunned down near his Kyiv apartment block on April 16.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has described Buzyna's daytime slaying by two masked men in a central Kyiv street as a "deliberate provocation."
Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested that Buzyna was killed for political reasons because of his pro-Russian views. (Interfax, Sputnik)
Khodorkovsky says Putin fabricated conflict with West as a distraction:
The Russia-Ukraine conflict has no short-term solution and is part of a fabricated conflict with the West to distract everyday Russians from corruption and incompetence, a prominent critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin has said.
Mikhail Khodorkovsky told an audience in Washington on June 17 that no real rapprochement with Russia was possible so long as Putin remained in charge.
Khodorkovsky was once Russia's richest man but is now living in exile after spending a decade in jail on what he and his supporters say were charges fabricated because of the political threat he posed to Putin.
U.S.-Russian ties are at their lowest point since the Cold War, and Russia's ruling elite fosters such isolation from the West as a tool to stay in power, Khodorkovsky said in his speech at the Atlantic Council think tank.
"The current confrontation with the West is absolutely artificial," he said, speaking through a translator.
"They desperately need an image of an enemy who would distract the attention of the populace from the corruption and inefficiency that exists."
Khodorkovsky used to own the mammoth Yukos oil company, which once produced as much oil as Qatar but is now defunct. He was arrested in 2003 and sentenced to nine years in jail on tax-fraud and embezzlement charges.
He ended up serving 10 years, and was released in late 2013 right before the Sochi Winter Olympic Games.
He now lives in exile in Switzerland and leads a Moscow-based human rights group called Open Russia. It aims to discuss alternatives to Putin's rule and is heavily critical of his policies.
Khodorkovsky said he envisioned a post-Putin, Western-oriented Russia, although he did not discuss how the current government might fall.
The United States and the rest of the West must therefore prepare for some day gradually welcoming Russia into their fold, the dissident aid, and that will mean European Union and NATO membership for their former arch foe.
But for now, he said, Russia's conflict with Ukraine -- its annexation of Crimea and support for pro-Russian rebels in the east of Ukraine -- is here to stay, suggesting it might last as long as the division of North and South Korea.
"A freezing of the conflict is the only reasonable expectation," Khodorkovsky said.
While the United States has no choice but to remain engaged in Ukraine, he cautioned Washington against giving Kyiv weapons. He said most Russians already believe the conflict there is between Russia and the United States.
"This situation is going to keep on developing in this direction if arms start being shipped to Ukraine," he said.
"Then you have the question whether the United States is ready to step into the conflict and to win, because if it is not ready for that, this will be interpreted as America having lost." (Reuters, AFP)