| 1 | -- The United States will deploy F-22 fighter jets to Europe soon to support eastern European members of the NATO alliance unnerved by Russia's intervention in Ukraine. |
| 2 | -- Speaking at a joint news conference in Berlin with French President Francois Hollande and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said everything must be done to fully implement a cease-fire agreement in eastern Ukraine. |
| 3 | -- A new opinion poll from Ukraine shows that after 16 months of war against Russian-backed separatists in the country's east, more Ukrainians now support independence than at any time in the last 15 years. |
| 4 | -- Thousands of servicemen marched in central Kyiv to mark Ukraine's Independence Day. |
| 5 | Speaking at the parade, President Petro Poroshenko said Ukraine would continue to increase its troop numbers in order to fend off attacks by Russia-backed separatists in the east. |
| 6 | -- Poroshenko has called on all political forces in the country to support his plans for constitutional change aimed at ending a separatist conflict in the east and defeating what he called the "Russian aggressor." |
| 7 | The United States will deploy F-22 fighter jets to Europe soon to support Eastern European members of the NATO alliance unnerved by Russia's intervention in Ukraine, Air Force Secretary Deborah James said on August 24. |
| 8 | It would be the first deployment of the F-22 to Europe outside air shows. |
| 9 | The Air Force has already been using radar-evading F-22s to carry out some attacks against Islamic State sites, the first real combat air strikes by the jets. |
| 10 | "Russia's military activity in the Ukraine continues to be of great concern to us and to our European allies," James told a news conference at the Pentagon. |
| 11 | "For the Air Force, an F-22 deployment is certainly on the strong side of the coin." |
| 12 | Air Force Chief of Staff General Mark Welsh James said the F-22's inaugural deployment in Europe would allow U.S. forces to train with NATO partners across Europe, testing the ability of the jets to communicate and fight together with the Eurofighter and other advanced warplanes. |
| 13 | This ends our live blogging for August 24. |
| 14 | Be sure to check back tomorrow for our continuing coverage. |
| 15 | German Chancellor Angela Merkel says everything must be done to fully implement a cease-fire agreement in eastern Ukraine. |
| 16 | She was speaking in Berlin on August 24 at a joint news conference in Berlin with French President Francois Hollande and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. |
| 17 | She said the peace deal reached in Minsk in February "hasn't been fully implemented and that's meant that there have been more and more victims." |
| 18 | Poroshenko reiterated that "there is no alternative to the Minsk process." |
| 19 | Earlier in Kyiv, Poroshenko marked Ukraine's Independence Day, warning of the need to act carefully in the next year in the face of "Russian aggression." |
| 20 | More than 6,400 people have been killed in fighting between Ukrainian government forces and Russian-backed separatists in Ukraine's east since April 2014. |
| 21 | Ukrainian border guards greeted hundreds of people crossing from Crimea who were unwilling to celebrate Ukraine's Independence Day on the peninsula, which was annexed by Russia last year. |