Geography of Ukraine

Nearly 500 coal miners in Ukraine's war-torn east were briefly trapped underground on Monday after their pit lost power when a shell hit an electricity substation.
      
The incident occurred in rebel-controlled Donetsk city's Zasyadko coal mine -- one of eastern Europe's largest and scene of a similar incident on January 11.
      

Pro-Russian rebels cemented their hold Friday on a long-disputed airport ceded by Ukrainian troops during an upsurge in clashes that killed nearly 50 people and punctured Europe's latest push for peace in the nine-month war.
      

All state-owned companies in Ukraine's Donbass region have been de facto nationalized, rebels say.

Alexander Zakharchenko, head of self-proclaimed "Donetsk People's Republic', has said in a press statement that in case of entities with "state participation" the rebel authorities are intending to "step in" as " business partners".

As many as 90 Russian trucks have delivered loads of humanitarian aid to the Donbass region in Eastern Ukraine.

The convoy has transported there medicaments, construction and New Year presents.

Deliveries have a total weight of 1.4 tons. Some reports say the amount is higher and even put the number of trucks at up to 170.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has announced Moscow could restrict the movement of foreign flights in its airspace if new sector sanctions are introduced against the country.

"If there are sanctions related to energy [or] further restrictions to our financial sector, we have to respond asymmetrically," Russian agency ITAR-TASS quoted Medvedev as saying.

Gunfire and heavy shelling rocked a key frontline city in eastern Ukraine overnight, raising fears on Sept. 7 that a tenuous truce between government and rebel forces had already collapsed.
     

The hotels in Bulgaria's Sofia are in the Top 10 list of cleanest hotels in world capitals, shows a list of the Hotel.info portal. 

The ratings are formed on the opinions of more than 6 million users of the tourist portal, who rated hotels in world capitals.

Most clean are the hotels in Tokyo, while the dirtiest are in Kiev.

A top commander of the pro-Russia insurgency in eastern Ukraine said August 9 that Ukrainian forces have seized a key town, leaving the rebel region’s largest city of Donetsk surrounded.

Ukrainain forces say at least 150 rebels have been killed during heavy fighting in the east of the country.

According to Kiev officials, the army virtually sealed off the town of Mykolayivka after attacking six posts of separatists.

Four soldiers were reportedly injured as a result, the KyivPost wrote Friday.

Russia plans to issue a banknote dedicated to Crimea, a senior central bank official said on Wednesday, the latest expression of national pride over Moscow's annexation of the Black Sea peninsula from Ukraine.