Black smoke billows from Donetsk international airport during a heavy gun battle… Read More Russia called for unspecified “emergency” measures to halt the violence in eastern Ukraine after separatist militias suffered the heaviest casualties of their insurgency. “It’s necessary to take emergency steps to stop the bloodshed and start an inclusive internal Ukrainian dialogue,” Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier by phone yesterday, according to the ministry’s website. “There’s no excuse” for military action in the southeastern part of the country, Lavrov said. Ukraine stepped up air patrols over Donetsk yesterday as a convoy of pro-Russian rebels moved through the eastern city with an anti-aircraft gun in tow, threatening renewed violence after dozens of militants were killed in a government operation to retake the area’s biggest airport. Both sides suffered casualties as rebels stormed a National Guard base in Luhansk, the […]