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The situation in the ATO area in eastern Ukraine was relatively calm last day. From 18:00 till midnight, the number of attacks launched by Russian-terrorist groups was small. However, the enemy ramped up the reconnaissance activity with the help of unmanned aerial vehicles.

This is reported by the ATO Headquarters press center.

As noted, in Donetsk direction, militants launched two attacks on ATO troops near Avdiivka (18km north of Donetsk), using grenade launchers and small arms.

In Mariupol direction, Ukrainian positions came under grenade launcher fire outside the villages Vodiane(16km north-west of Donetsk) and Marinka (35 km south-west of Donetsk).

In Luhansk direction, illegal armed formations used small arms to shell Ukrainian strongholds near Zolote (67km north-east of Luhansk) and Stanytsia Luhanska (16km north-east of Luhansk).

Russian-backed militants violated ceasefire in Donbas a total of 17 times over the past day. One Ukrainian soldier was wounded.

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Militants ramp up reconnaissance activity in eastern Ukraine - Ukrinform. Ukraine and world news

Overview

The five operational Exit/Entrance Checkpoints (EECPs) continue to witness a steady upsurge of crossings in 2017. In June, over 1.1 million individual crossings were recorded, representing an increase of 10 per cent from May. The rise seems to correlate somewhat with the ceasefire agreements, which came into effect on 24 June. The highest increase was observed at the Stanytsia Luhanska checkpoint the only operational pedestrian crossing point in Luhansk province. Pedestrians continue to experience crossing difficulties, including long waiting hours, inadequate conditions as a worn-out wooden bridge remains the only means of crossing, and insufficient crossing procedures and capacity outstripped by high demands. Rising temperatures have also taken a toll on civilians, particularly the elderly and those with special needs. Due to heavy crossing traffic and difficulties, some people have reportedly attempted to use illegal routes to cross the contact line, and in doing so, exposing themselves to mine risks. On 20 July, local authorities called a meeting with partners to ensure collective efforts to improve the condition. Partners plan to install more first aid tents to accommodate growing needs for on-site medical services. Meanwhile, challenge remains in upgrading the conditions of all EECPs to ensure safe and dignified environment, particularly conditions between zero checkpoints (no man's land) in terms of secure travel, peoples safety and access to sanitary facilities. In 2017, at least 13 civilians are reported so far to have died of or suffered from health conditions, while waiting in queues in harsh conditions at the checkpoints. Moreover, people continue to expose themselves to fatal risks due to ongoing combat activities in and around the checkpoints. At least two security incidents were recorded in June/July close to Marinka EECP, resulting in one civilian injury. Lengthy intervals of bus services to Bakhmut also cause concentration of civilians waiting at Maiorske EECP.

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Ukraine: Checkpoints - Humanitarian Snapshot (as of 26 July 2017) - ReliefWeb

Secretary of Energy Rick Perry poses for a family photo during the G7 Energy Ministerial Meeting on April 10, 2017 in Rome. Riccardo De Luca / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

"These individuals are known for pranking high-level officials and celebrities, particularly those who are supportive of an agenda that is not in line with their governments. In this case, the energy security of Ukraine," Hynes said.

During the 22-minute call on July 19, Perry, whose department oversees the U.S. nuclear weapons program, discussed a range of topics in a business-like tone, including sanctions against Russia and helping Ukraine develop oil and gas.

Perry said the Trump administration opposes Nord Stream 2, a Russian project to bring natural gas to Europe across the Baltic and that U.S. technology could help Ukraine develop gas.

"Giving Ukraine more options with some of our technology is, I think, in everyone's best interest with the exception of the Russians, but that's OK," he said.

Perry also discussed the Paris climate accord and coal exports on the call.

The call, first reported by E&E news, was recorded and posted online.

It happened about a month after Perry met with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and his delegation at the Energy Department.

President Donald Trump said last month that Washington plans to offer Ukraine more coal exports from the United States because the eastern European nation's industrial sector has difficulty securing coal from separatist-held regions.

It is unclear how the United States would bring more coal to Ukraine but Perry hinted on the call that the Commerce Department was working on it.

"The coal conversation at this particular point in time is with (Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross) and I full well suspect it will go forward," he said on the call.

News of the call came the same day the U.S. House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to impose new sanctions on Russia.

See more here:
Russian Prankster Convinced Rick Perry He Was Speaking to Ukraine Prime Minister - NBCNews.com

Russias security services are accusing Ukrainian spies of trying to recruit Crimeans en masse for a nefarious purpose: ruining the tourist season on the annexed peninsula.

Moscow took over Crimea in 2014 in a move that is still opposed by a majority of countries at the United Nations. Since then, Russia has attempted to transform the peninsulas reputation, hoping it will be seen asa tourism hub rather than a contested territory. Officials have called on Russians to visit the seaside region by the millions, and flashy ads that promise fun for the whole family air on Russian TV.

Read More: Russian agents detained in Ukraine after getting lost at sea during drill

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It is now more than halfway through July, however, and the Russian Security Services (FSB) claim Ukrainian chicanery might be to blame for the lackluster tourism figures this year. Russian tourism operators said earlier this month that just over a million Russians had visitted Crimea in the first half of 2017around a fifth of government annual projectionswhiledemand isdown versus last year by 30 percent.

Ukraine is not interested in Crimea having its tourist season, Viktor Palagin, the FSB chief in the region, told Russian news agency Interfax on Tuesday. They are setting up obstacles to this.

The plan, as Palagin tells it, involved Ukraines Security Services (SBU) and Defense Ministry, which have set up recruitment points on the administrative border between Crimea and the rest of Ukraine.

Crimeans are forced to pass through these points, Palagin said, without giving an example of where some of these are situated. Figures of influence in the de facto Russian authorities controlling the region are of particular interest, he said: More or less managers of even the lowest rung of the ladder face recruitment.

According to Palagin, the FSB receives requests and grants pardons for Crimean residents who have been accused of falling prey to foreign intelligence due to such recruitment points.

Fascinated with Palagins story, Russias RBC news channel asked a Crimean coach driver if he had spotted anything that resembles a recruitment point during his travels.

I have never seen any SBU recruitment points on the Crimea border, he said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. Nobody is even put through additional checks.

Some Ukrainians could not take Palagins claims seriously. Of course they are recruiting, one user wrote on Facebook. And whoever wont cooperate is shot.

I saw exactly that myself, another user wrote. They take you from your car and directly into the national guard. The user then listed a series of gruesome (and famously debunked) Russian accusations about life in Ukraine.

Yes, thats what were like, another user posted, while a fourth begged the question whether the FSB is then admitting that the SBU is better at spying, since SBU guys can turn FSB. Another briefly concluded: this is sad.

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Russian Security Forces Say Ukraine's Spies Are Ruining Summer In Crimea - Newsweek

Tougher talk from Washington.

When candidate Donald Trump made overtures to Russia during the 2016 election campaign, a grand bargain between the two nations -- U.S. acquiescence to Russian depredations in Ukraine in exchange for help in defeating Islamic State in Syria -- looked like a possible scenario under a Trump presidency. No one expected the U.S. to take a tougher line on Ukraine and yield Syria to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Yet that's what appears to be going on now, but more by accident than as part of any consistent U.S. strategy.

When Secretary of State Rex Tillerson picked Kurt Volker as the U.S. special representative for Ukraine, he signaled a tougher approach toward Russia's Ukrainian adventures. An old friend of that biggest of Russia hawks, Senator John McCain, Volker traveled to eastern Ukraine andlaid outa set of views that will be highly inconvenient both to the Kremlin and to its longtime negotiating partners on the Ukraine crisis, Germany and France.

QuickTake Standoff in Ukraine

He said that, unlike under the Obama administration, the U.S. was no longer averse to supplying Ukraine with weapons -- something for which Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has long lobbied.The decision isn't made yet, but, according to Volker, it wouldn't "provoke Russia to do more than they are already doing, and it also isn't going to change any kind of balance that way." Instead, the weapons would allow Ukraine to defend itself against further Russian aggression. "Russia says it won't do that and isn't doing that, so then there should be no risk to anybody, if that's the case," Volker said.

He also appeared to buy the Ukrainian position on several important points of contention: That Russia alone is hindering the resolution of the conflict under the Minsk agreements, that it needs to pull out its forces before "a basis of governance going forward" is created in eastern Ukraine, and that it's the pro-Russian rebels who are blocking supplies to civilians in the regions from the rest of Ukraine. As the European negotiators -- and Victoria Nuland, Volker's predecessor as the State Department's point person on Ukraine -- well know, it's not as simple as that.

Ukraine has been unable to legislate on elections in the separatist-held areas, with the key political forces in Ukraine demanding that control of Ukraine's eastern border be restored to it first -- a condition not included in the Minsk agreement. And it's Ukrainian nationalists, with reluctant support from the government, who have cut off economic ties with the separatist regions.

Volker is an experienced diplomat, and his pointed message to Russia is no gaffe: It's the new U.S. policy of "more engagement," as Volker understands it. The idea appears to be a full revision of the Minsk agreement to force Russia to comply with Ukrainian demands, using arms supplies to Ukraine to raise the cost of continued conflict for Russia.

In Syria, by contrast, the Trump administration has been accommodating to Russia. The Central Intelligence Agency's line,pushedby Director Mike Pompeo, is to counteract Russian influence there, as well as the emerging Russia-Iran axis. But Trump clearly doesn't buy it: He hasdefundedthe CIA program thatarmed Syrian rebels fighting the Russian-supported regime, doing the opposite of what Volker appears to propose in Ukraine.

The U.S. policy in Syria is a continuation of Obama's -- effectively to let Russia deal with it. Russia, while paying lip service to Syria's integrity, has been working to split the country into regime-controlled and rebel-controlled areas, freezing the conflict as Minsk largely froze the one in eastern Ukraine. After fighting fiercely to gain more territory for the rebels at the expense of Islamic State, the U.S. appears happy to go along.

If Russian President Vladimir Putin engaged in Syria to strengthen his bargaining position on Ukraine --as many, myself included, suspected at the time -- he didn't quite get what he want. But what he's getting from the U.S. is even better for him -- and worse for U.S. strategic interests.

If the U.S. arms Ukraine, the Kremlin's propaganda claims that the eastern Ukrainian war is actually a proxy conflict with the U.S. which is trying to tear the Slavic community apart would be that much more credible and that much more support-mobilizing ahead of the 2018 presidential election. While increasing the cost of further support for the separatists, it would make themmore politically acceptable andcould lead to Russianrecognition of eastern Ukraine's puppet "people's republics," a collapse of Minsk and more deadly clashes, still as unlikely as ever to end in Ukraine's favor.Putin has tolerated the Minsk process, believing that time is on his side, but more U.S. meddling may prompt him to seek closure.

U.S. concessions in Syria, meanwhile, set Russia up as an equal to the U.S. in the Middle East. Local players must now deal with both sides. Turkey'sdecisionto buy Russia's S-400 anti-aircraft missiles, heavily advertised by the Kremlin during the Syrian conflict, is onerecent result.

Now, it appears the Trump administration wants to be more involvedin the former Soviet republic, where it has feweconomic or geopolitical interests, than in the Muslim world where Russia's influence is growing. Being tough on Russia everywhere would be a more consistent strategy -- one that McCain would advocate. Being relatively soft everywhere and only showing displeasure through economic sanctions, Obama-style, would also be a consistent, do-no-harm strategy. But current U.S. policies make little strategic sense.

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That's likely because there is no unified strategy behind all the different U.S. moves. Tillerson -- reportedly frustrated by his interactions with the Trump White House -- is trying to embrace the McCain and Obama models at once, perhaps because he has staffers from both camps who can sell their views convincingly to the novice foreign policy chief. The CIA is filled with Russia hawks, but Trump distrusts the intelligence community. Generals who lead theSyria military effort concentrate on beating Islamic State, not on the eventual political settlement, and Trump is tempted to go along with them because he promised to beat Islamic State, not to fix the Syrian state.

The U.S. is a rudderless giant aircraft carrier. Putin doesn't even need to outmaneuver it; he just has to move around it-- something he's uncommonly good at.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

To contact the author of this story: Leonid Bershidsky at lbershidsky@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Therese Raphael at traphael4@bloomberg.net

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Trump's New Ukraine Envoy Changes the Tune - Bloomberg