Here's another update from our news desk, this time on Nadia Savchenko:
Savchenko Stops Hunger Strike
Ukrainian military pilot Nadia Savchenko, whom Russia has imprisoned on murder charges, has stopped her hunger strike.
Ukrainian President Petgro Poroshenko wrote on Twitter on April 19 that Savchenko "had agreed" to stop the hunger strike after talking to her by phone.
Savchenko, 34, has refused to consume water and food since April 6, demanding her immediate release.
She was sentenced in March to 22 years in jail on charges including complicity in the killing of two Russian journalists in eastern Ukraine in 2014. The sentence came into effect on April 5.
She has refused to appeal the verdict and sentence, saying she does not recognize the legitimacy of the probe against her.
Savchenko said she was seized in eastern Ukraine in June 2014 while fighting with a volunteer battalion against Russia-backed separatists, and taken to Russia illegally.
Here's a rather worrying item from RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service:
Journalist In Crimea Investigated By Russia-Backed Authorities
The office for Crimea's de facto prosecutor-general has said that an RFE/RL journalist has been ordered not to leave the peninsula while he is being investigated by the Russia-backed authorities.
In a statement on April 19, the Moscow-backed Prosecutor-General's Office said the journalist is being investigated for alleged "calls for undermining the Russian territorial integrity via mass media."
"Police conducted forced searches at the homes of seven people across Crimea, including some RFE/RL correspondents," said RFE/RL Editor in Chief Nenad Pejic in a statement on April 19. "One of those journalists is now facing up to 5 years in prison on criminal charges related to his work."
The prosecutor-general's office said earlier on April 19 that police searched the homes of several local journalists and confiscated computers and data "proving that materials of an extremist character had been under preparation."
Crimea's Prosecutor-General Natalya Poklonskaya has called for the closure of RFE/RL's Crimea website.
After Moscow annexed Crimea from Ukraine in March 2014, the Russian parliament passed a law making it a criminal offense to question Russia's territorial integrity, which also means opposing the occupation.
"RFE/RL's Crimea website is one of the last remaining sources of independent news in Russian-occupied Crimea," Pejic added. "RFE/RL will not stop providing professional coverage to its audiences in need. We will not stop defending our colleagues."
With reporting by Interfax, TASS, and AP
Poroshenko suggests Savchenko deal in the works:
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko says Kyiv and Moscow have agreed on a possible framework to free Ukrainian military pilot Nadia Savchenko, who Russia has imprisoned on murder charges.
Shortly a Ukrainian court sentenced two Russian citizens to 14 years in prison each on charges of fighting alongside Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, the Kremlin said Poroshenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed by phone the "fate" of the two Russians as well as Savchenko.
Poroshenko has previously proposed swapping Savchenko -- who is a national hero and has denied the charges against her -- for the Russians.
Ukraine's Holosiiv district court found the two Russian men guilty of conducting terrorist acts and aggressive military activities and sentenced them the same day.
The two, who pleaded not guilty, retracted video confessions made earlier in which they admitted they were active-duty Russian military personnel when they were captured in Ukraine's Luhansk region in May 2015.Both said the statements were made under duress.
Russia has said neither Yerofeyev nor Aleksandrov were employed by the military when they were captured by a volunteer Ukrainian militia.
Moscow has repeatedly denied that it has provided weapons, training, and personnel to support separatists fighting government forces in eastern Ukraine. Independent observers, journalists, and official monitors, however, have gathered a substantial body of evidence to the contrary. (AP, TASS)