The issue focused on the May 5 referendum to remove Ukraine from Russia and set it on a path toward European integration. Both sides have made hard-line statements during the months before the vote, amid increasingly complex security situations on the European front and on the territory of a former Soviet republic across the Russian border.


On June 5, Kiev announced that a new offensive against rebel positions was to begin in the eastern town of Debaltseve on June 11.


As its forces closed in, Ukrainian army