The Latest Breaking News from Donetsk

Ukraine crisis has thrust Denis Pushilin and Leonid Pasechnik into centre of events, amid claim they are puppets of Putin

A "full-scale" invasion of Ukraine has started by Russia with missile strikes in the capital Kyiv and other major cities as Vladimir Putin says he has launched a special military operation

Andrey, 21, had never held a gun before this week. It came as a shock when he received a phone call telling him he had been called up for military duty.

Two separate convoys of military equipment with no identifiable insignia were moving towards the city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine along different roads from the direction of the Russian border, a Reuters witness reported on Wednesday.

Russia’s recognition of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, and fears of a military attack on Ukraine, have once again drawn the world’s attention to these two rebel-held separatist regions. They have been outside Ukrainian government control since Russian-backed separatists fought Ukrainian forces to a standstill in 2014, a conflict…

Vladimir Putin’s recognition of Donetsk and Luhansk as independent has escalated Russia’s slow annexation of Ukrainian territories. This is a violation of international law, according to Marija Pejčinović Burić, secretary general of the Council of Europe, the continent’s top organisation to promote human rights and democracy. Since Russia is a…

As some Western observers have feared, Russian President Vladimir Putin has just proved that his aggression toward Ukraine was never really about NATO.

A Russian-backed leader in the breakaway Donetsk region of Ukraine said on Wednesday that a military mobilisation was gathering pace to counter Ukrainian "aggression".

Ukraine's top security official Oleksiy Danilov said on Wednesday that Ukraine would impose a state of emergency on all of its territory, apart from the Donetsk and Luhansk regions where it has been in place since 2014.