Daily Digest: Top news of Friday, Aug. 17 - Aug. 17, 2018

As tensions with Russia rise in the Azov Sea, Ukraine plans not only to strengthen its presence in the sea, but also to take measures to defend its coast, Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Viktor Muzhenko said in an interview with BBC News Ukraine.
Ukrainian prosecutors in the treason trial against ex-President Viktor Yanukovych have asked the court in Kyiv to sentence the pro-Russian former leader to 15 years in prison.
A 20-year-old female marine has been seriously wounded by Russian-led forces in the Donbas, a soldier of the airborne assault company of the Marine Corps, Mykola Stavytskiy, wrote on Facebook. He said she received wounds during enemy shelling yesterday.
Lithuania plans to allocate about a million euros to support Ukraine in 2019, Chairman of the Donetsk Regional Military and Civil Administration Oleksandr Kuts wrote on Facebook after meeting with Lithuanian Ambassador to Ukraine Marius Janukonis on Aug. 15.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, in a telephone conversation with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, spoke of the need for the immediate release of Ukrainian film director Oleg Sentsov, who has been on a hunger strike in a Russian prison for 95 days.
Lyudmila Kozlovska, a Ukrainian national who has lived in Poland with her Polish husband for 10 years, has been deported from the country, in a move widely viewed as linked to the couple’s open criticism of the current government’s attack on the independent judiciary.
Ukraine’s national brand design, called “Ukraine Now,” has won a prestigious Red Dot Award in the category of corporate design, the organizers of the international competition announced on Aug. 16. The creator of the winning design was Ukrainian advertising agency Banda.