Angela Merkel has been talking about Ukraine in Warsaw (courtesy of RFE/RL's news desk):
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on April 27 that international sanctions imposed on Russia should depend on whether peacekeeping commitments signed this year in Minsk are upheld.
Merkel, at a news conference with Polish Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz in Warsaw, said that, at the European Council meeting in March, the EU "took an unambiguous decision that the sanctions were related to completing the Minsk agreements."
She said "It is clear that completing this package is taking longer" and will be dealt with in June.
Kopacz said that Merkel agreed with her that the sanctions that have already been imposed on Russia should be maintained.
The main topics for discussion between Merkel and Kopacz are expected to be the conflict in Ukraine as well as preparations for the upcoming Eastern Partnership summit next month in Latvia's capital, Riga.
The Eastern Partnership brings together the European Union and the ex-Soviet states of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine.
(Reuters, dpa)
Here's some more Savchenko news from our news desk:
A lawyer for Nadia Savchenko says that the Ukrainian military pilot will be moved from a Moscow jail to a civilian hospital in the Russian capital on April 28.
Lawyer Mark Feigin said on Twitter on April 27 that he had just visited Savchenko in the Matrosskaya Tishina pretrial detention center.
"They will send her to City Hospital No. 20 tomorrow," Feigin wrote.
It was not immediately clear whether the transfer would be permanent.
A spokeswoman for the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service said hours earlier that Savchenko's health had deteriorated abruptly after she refused to eat over the weekend, and that she would be transferred to a civilian hospital "if needed."
Savchenko has been jailed since July, when she says she was illegally brought into Russia after being abducted by pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.
She is charged with complicity in the killing of two Russian journalists who died in the conflict there, as well as illegal border crossing.
She denies guilt, says Russia has no right to try her, and maintained a hunger strike for more than 80 days over the winter.