Daily Digest: Top news of Tuesday, Aug. 14 - Aug. 14, 2018

The makers of an upcoming film about the Soviet-era poet and dissident Vasyl Stus back down from plans to cut scenes portraying pro-Russian politician Viktor Medvedchuk. Medvedchuk was the poet’s defense lawyer in the sham Soviet trial in 1980 that saw Stus convicted to 10 years labor and five years in exile. The poet died in a gulag in 1985.
U.S. prosecutors on Aug. 13 said they plan to wrap up their tax and bank fraud case against former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort soon, making it likely the case will go to the jury by midweek if the defense decides not to call any witnesses. The case is being closely followed in Ukraine, where Manafort was once a political consultant for runaway former President Viktor Yanukovych.
The war grinds on, with Ukrainian army positions in Donbas coming under attack almost 60 times, and three soldiers being wounded in the previous day, the press center of the Joint Forces Operation reported on Aug. 13.
Nataliya Kaplan, sister of the Ukrainian film director Oleg Sentsov, convicted by the Russian court for political reasons, has called for refraining from disseminating information about the possible release of her brother before he departs Russia.
As Mi-24 attack helicopters and Sukhoi Su-25 attack aircraft zoom just a few dozen meters over the heads of holidaymakers on the beaches of the Sea of Azov, Ukraine’s Air Force says the flyovers are needed for pilots to practice countering possible Russian aggression in the region.
The heads of giant state building company Ukrbud and CLAP, which makes smart systems for homes, who are father and son, say their family connections have nothing to do with a cooperation agreement between the two companies - despite the fact that CLAP hasn’t even got a final product to offer yet.
Ukrainian tennis player Elina Svitolina was defeated by U.S. player Sloane Stephens in the Rogers Cup semifinals held in Montreal, Canada on Aug. 12.