RFE/RL's news desk has more on the Nord Stream development:
Merkel: New Pipeline Impossible Without Clarity For Ukraine
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said that a new natural-gas pipeline linking Russia with Germany cannot go ahead without clarity on Ukraine's role as a gas transit route.
"I made very clear that a Nord Stream 2 project is impossible without clarity on the future transit role of Ukraine," Merkel said at a news conference with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in Berlin on April 10.
She said that "it is not just an economic issue but there are also political considerations."
Merkel had in the past called Nord Stream 2 a purely "economic project" with no need for political intervention.
Nord Stream 2, which is to run from Russia through the Baltic Sea to Germany -- the European Union's biggest economy -- would double the existing Nord Stream pipeline's annual capacity of 55 billion cubic meters.
But critics argue it will increase dependence on Russia and enrich its state-owned energy companies at a time when Moscow stands accused of endangering European security.
Merkel said she had told Russian President Vladimir Putin in a phone call on April 9, "It cannot be that through Nord Stream 2, Ukraine has no further importance regarding the transit of gas."
She insisted that Ukraine relied heavily on income from transit fees.
In an interview with German business daily Handelsblatt on April 9, Poroshenko urged Berlin to abandon plans to build Nord Stream 2, saying it would enable an "economic and energy blockade" against Ukraine and blasting it as "political bribe money for loyalty to Russia."
He accused Russia of being an "extremely unreliable partner" as a gas supplier, citing state-owned energy firm Gazprom's refusal to pay Ukraine billions of dollars after shutting off supplies in the middle of winter.
Poland and the Baltics oppose Nord Stream 2, and U.S. officials have spoken out against it.
In Warsaw in January, then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that "the United States opposes the Nord Stream 2 pipeline," adding, "We see it as undermining Europe's overall energy security and stability and providing Russia yet another tool to politicize energy as a political tool."
With reporting by Reuters and AFP
Here is today's map of the latest situation in the Donbas conflict zone according to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry. (CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE)
Here's an item from our news desk:
Arrested Ukrainian Lawmaker Savchenko's Home, Office Searched
Ukrainian law enforcement officers have searched the home and office of lawmaker Nadia Savchenko, who is in jail pending trial on charges of plotting a terrorist attack on parliament with grenades and automatic weapons.
Two lawyers for Savchenko, Dmytro Buhay and Oleh Solovey, said that Security Service (SBU) officers conducted the searches on April 10.
Savchenko's mother, Maria Savchenko, said the officers confiscated a pistol that her daughter received as an award as well as some ammunition for the gun.
SBU spokeswoman Olena Hitlyanska said that the searches were linked to investigations into Savchenko, a former military aviator who spent two years in Russian prison before returning home in a swap connected to the conflict in eastern Ukraine.
A court in Kyiv placed Savchenko under two-month pretrial arrest on March 23, a day after fellow lawmakers voted to strip her of her immunity from prosecution and authorized her arrest.
Savchenko and Volodymyr Ruban are accused of plotting to overthrow the government, carry out a "large-scale terrorist attack" in central Kyiv, and kill senior officials.
Ruban was detained earlier in March while crossing into government-controlled territory in eastern Ukraine, allegedly with large amounts of weapons and ammunition hidden in a shipment of furniture.
Savchenko maintains her innocence and says her arrest was illegal.
Savchenko says she was abducted in 2014 in the eastern Ukrainian area known as the Donbas, where a war that has now killed more than 10,3000 had erupted that April between Kyiv's forces and Russia-backed separatists.
She spent two years in prison in Russia, defying the Kremlin with a series of hunger strikes, and returned to a hero's welcome in Kyiv when she was released as part of a prisoner swap in May 2016.
Elected to parliament on an opposition party ticket while still held in Russia, Savchenko became a vehement critic of President Petro Poroshenko's government after her return.
She has drawn fire from several political camps, facing criticism for holding talks with the separatists without government consent and for comments nationalists said indicated she advocated accepting Moscow's seizure of the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine.