Good morning. We'll start the live blog today with this item from our news desk on the G7 summit in Germany, where Ukraine is expected to loom large over proceedings:
German Chancellor Angela Merkel is set to open a two-day meeting of leaders from the world's leading industrial economies on June 7.
The Group of Seven (G7) summit is being held in the Bavarian Alps in Germany.
The meeting is expected to be dominated by discussions of the West's response to flaring violence in eastern Ukraine.
Last year, Russia was excluded from the group – previously known as the G8 -- following Moscow's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.
Also high on the agenda are Greece's debt crisis, the global economy, and terrorism.
U.S. President Barack Obama arrived in southern Germany early on June 7. Obama and Merkel are expected to hold a meeting before joining the leaders of Britain, France, Italy, Canada, and Japan.
Ahead of the summit, thousands of protesters rallied in the nearby town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, sparking sporadic clashes with police.
Several people were taken to hospital with injuries.
(dpa, AFP, AP, BBC)
We are now closing the live blog for today. Until we resume again tomorrow, you can keep up with all our ongoing Ukraine news coverage here.
Here's another update from our news desk:
The Swiss government says diplomat Heidi Tagliavini will step down as the representative of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) representative in talks between Moscow, Kyiv, and pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine.
The Swiss Foreign Ministry said on June 6 that Tagliavini wants to give up her mandate soon but gave no exact date for her departure.
Tagliavini, who previously worked on crises in Chechnya and Georgia, has played a low-key role for the past year while mediating on the conflict in eastern Ukraine.
The announcement of her pending resignation comes four days after the latest talks ended.
Former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma, Kyiv's representative to the trilateral Contact Group on Ukraine, said he was thankful for the "constructive work" that Tagliavini did as the OSCE mediator.
OSCE officials have called for talks among the three sides to resume after the worst outbreak of fighting in the conflict since a February cease-fire deal was agreed to in Minsk.
At least 6,400 people have died in eastern Ukraine since April 2014.
(AP, Interfax)