Russian court begins hearings against Crimean leader's son:
A court in the Russian city of Krasnodar has started hearings into the case against a son of veteran Crimean Tatar leader Mustafa Dzhemilev.
Khaiser Dzhemilev was arrested in May 2013 by Ukrainian authorities after allegedly shooting a friend dead. Khaiser has claimed he shot his friend accidentally.
After Crimea's annexation by Russia in March last year, the Moscow-backed authorities took over Khaiser's case and transferred him to Russia's Krasnodar region.
They said Khaiser Dzhemilev was being held on three charges under the Russian Criminal Code, including murder and the illegal possession of weapons.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled that Russia must release Khaiser from detention, but Moscow ignored the ruling.
Khaiser Dzhemilev's lawyer, Nikolai Polozov, told RFE/RL on April 14 that Russia violated his client’s rights and international regulations by ignoring the ECHR ruling.
Longtime Crimean Tatar leader Mustafa Dzhemilev, who strongly protested the annexation and is currently living in Ukraine, was barred in May from entering the peninsula.
Mustafa Dzhemilev says the Kremlin is holding Khaiser hostage because of his father's rejection of the annexation.
Six Ukrainian soldiers killed in latest attacks:
Six soldiers have been killed and 12 injured as fighting has flared in eastern Ukraine in the past 24 hours, despite a cease-fire.
Ukrainian military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said on April 14 that the casualties were the result of "serious provocations" by Russian-supported separatists.
Lysenko said the situation in eastern Ukraine was "unstable" with attacks "by the enemy continuing in almost all directions."
He added that the most intense shelling occurred in the villages of Shyrokyne and Pavlopil, near the southern seaport of Mariupol, and in areas near the rebel-held regional capitals of Donetsk and Luhansk.
The six deaths are the highest toll in eastern Ukraine in 10 days.
The announcement came hours after the Ukrainian, German, French, and Russian foreign ministers met in Berlin and expressed "grave concern" over cease-fire violations.
Fighting in the conflict that has killed more than 6,000 people in a year has eased considerably since a cease-fire deal was signed in Minsk in February. (AFP, Reuters)