The Ukrainian Defense Ministry reports 1 Ukrainian soldier killed in battle and 6 wounded; Ukrainian media reports from social media that 2 civilians have been killed and at least 3 wounded in Makeyevka, including a child.
Russia has claimed that a video of air strikes of a Syrian school implicating either Russia or Syria is fake. Memorial announces the number of political prisoners has doubled.
Roskomnadzor, the Russian state media supervision agency that serves as a state censor, is planning to block LinkedIn for not placing its servers with Russian customer data on Russian soil. There is some speculation that LinkedIn has been chosen first in retaliation for the arrest of Russian hacker Yevgeny Nikulin.
EU members decided at a summit last week to postpone new sanctions against Russia; today 5 non-EU members joined previous EU sanctions. Despite sanctions, Germany nearly doubled investments in Russia.
Putin aide Sergei Ivanov said to make overture to the US, but claims Russia didn’t hack DNC and doesn’t want Donald Trump to be president lack credibility.
Yandex announced that media that is not registered with Roskomnadzor, the state media monitoring agency will see its stories disappear from the front page of Yandex News as well as regional and subject pages
Russia is spending more on defense than education and making cuts to health care, raising concerns about the health and welfare of the population.
Putin and Erdogan discussed the withdrawal of the Nusra Front from Aleppo; any refugee exodus could lead to a million people coming to Turkey.
Dmitry Rogozin, vice premier for defense and space, has ordered Cossacks to guard Russia’s borders along with the Federal Security Service, RT reports.
The US and UK are considering more sanctions against Russia and Syria over the bombing of Aleppo; the US has announced it will retaliate for Russia’s cyber attacks on the US. Putin has dismissed the claims as campaign rhetoric.
