By RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service
KYIV -- A court in Kyiv has refused to sanction the arrest of two top officials detained on corruption charges.
The Pechera District court in the Ukrainian capital ruled on March 27 that former Emergency Situations Service head Serhiy Bochkovskiy and his former deputy, Vasyl Stoyetskiy, will not be sent to pretrial detention due to "insufficient evidences of a crime."
On March 25, Ukrainian police interrupted a government session being broadcast live on television and detained Bochkovskiy and Stoyetskiy, leading them away in handcuffs.
The two were sacked from their posts the same day.
Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said the two were being investigated on suspicion of corruption connected to offshore companies.
According to the Ukrainian law, suspects might be kept in custody without a court's arrest order up to 72 hours, which means that Bochkovskiy and Stoyetskiy will most likely be released on March 28.
From Ukrainian Service correspondent Yulia Ratsybarska and Daisy Sindelar in Prague:
In Dnipropetrovsk, Kolomoyskiy's Departure Leaves No One Indifferent
From our newsroom:
Separatists In Eastern Ukraine Say 'Lawmaker' Killed
Russian-backed separatists in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region say a member of their legislative body and an aide have been shot dead.
Andrei Purgin, the senior member of the separatist legislature in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, said on March 27 that Roman Voznik and an aide were killed late on March 26 in the rebel-controlled provincial capital, Donetsk.
Voznik was also commander of a rebel battalion called Mirazh (Mirage).
Another separatist leader, Aleksandr Kofman, said the two men were shot dead at around 11:00 p.m. in a car.
Purgin said it was "too early to draw conclusions" about who killed them.
More than 6,000 people have been killed since April 2014 in a conflict between government forces and the rebels, who hold parts of Donetsk and Luhansk provinces.
Fighting has eased under a cease-fire agreement signed in February, but prospects for a settlement are clouded by disputes over the European-brokered deal.