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Ukrainian blogger Alex Rychkoff reports that the memorial rally on Kulikovo Pole, outside the Trade Union building in Odessa, has now largely dispersed.

Censor.NET reports that the press office of the governor of the Lugansk region, Hennadiy Moskal, announced at 15:20 (12:20 GMT) that Russian-backed fighters were attacking Ukrainian defensive positions in Krymskoye, on the southern banks of the Seversky Donets river.

One year after violent clashes in the Ukrainian port city of Odessa that left 48 people dead, two rallies are being held to commemorate the tragic events.

A large military convoy has been filmed in Lugansk, described as “reinforcements” and described as having originated in Russia. The convoy has tanks, howitzers, surface-to-air missile launchers and other vehicles.

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden has spoken to Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk today. Here is the White House readout of that conversation:

Lugansk News Today has published the transcript of a Ukrainian interrogation of a Russian soldier captured in Donetsk Region by the Ukrainian armed forces who fought on the side of the Russian-backed militants. He said that he observed paratroopers from Pskov attack Ukrainian positions in August 2014, and also participated in this attack.

The leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR), Aleksandr Zakharchenko, gave a lengthy interview to Russia’s state-owned RIA Novosti news agency yesterday.

In what will doubtless be seen as a provocative act by Ukraine’s Communists, who are holding rallies to mark International Workers’ Day, fighters from the Aidar volunteer battalion have pulled down a bust of Lenin in the village of Nizhnetyoploye in the Lugansk region.

The leader of the Communist Party of Ukraine (KPU), Petro Symonenko, fled a KPU rally in Kiev today after being confronted by anti-communist activists and showered with kefir yoghurt.

Russia’s Interfax news agency reports that President Vladimir Putin’s press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, has denied the claim made yesterday by Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko that Putin had “agreed with the possibility of the deployment of contingent of peacekeepers to the Donbass.”