Poroshenko: Ukrainians Should Vote On Whether to Join NATO
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has repeated a pledge to put the question of NATO membership before the Ukrainian people in a referendum vote.
Poroshenko told the iTele French television station on April 22 that joining NATO is a "fundamental" issue, and he would "hold a referendum [and] let the people decide."
He did not say when such a vote would be held.
The Ukrainian president has previously stated that Kyiv would not attempt to join the military alliance without getting approval in a referendum.
But Poroshenko said the government's priority is joining the European Union because Ukraine is a European country and "Europe can't be complete without Ukraine."
On the fighting in eastern Ukraine, Poroshenko said bloodshed continues as government troops battle Russian-backed separatists in parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions despite a February cease-fire agreement.
More than 6,100 people have been killed in the conflict in the past year.
Based on reporting by Unian and KyivPost.com
The murder of Ukrainian journalist Oles Buzyna, shot dead outside his home on April 16, has proved fodder for numerous social-media discussions and speculations and conspiracy web sites.
A story that began to emerge after his death was a claim that Peacekeeper (Mirotvorets), a Ukrainian web site that tracks cases of suspected "pro-Russian terrorists, separatists, mercenaries, war criminals, and murderers" had in fact uploaded his profile two days before his death, and even added his home address and phone number, which had not been previously published before his death.
LiveLeak and many others maintained that the dating of the entries before the murder constituted proof that the website was involved in the murders.
The same claim was made about an entry for Oleh Kalashnikov, a former parliamentary member who had been shot dead the previous day on April 15 as he returned home to his apartment.
But as Peacekeeper explained in a post on their site on April 17, the entire thing was apparently a deliberate hoax -- a honey-trap for conspiracy theorists.
Ukrainian prosecutors have said the deadly fire in the southern port city of Odesa last May was not pre-planned.
Following an official investigation Ukrainian prosecutors said there was no evidence that the fire which killed dozens of Russian-backed militants in the House of Trade Unions was premeditated.
Most of the victims died of carbon monoxide poisoning. The initial version that a toxic substance, chloroform, had been brought to the building before it was set on fire was not proven.
On May 2, 2014, 48 people were killed and 247 others injured in a blaze that broke out in a Trade Union building in central Odesa after clashes between football fans supporting the current authorities and anti-government activists.
Here's today's map of the security situation, according to the National Security and Defense Council:
Russia has jailed a Crimean historian to seven years in jail, our Russian Service reports:
A historian from Crimea, Oleksiy Chyrniy, has been sentenced to seven years in jail in Russia on terrorism charges.
Russia's North Caucasus District Court on April 21 found Chyrniy guilty of planning several terrorist acts in Crimea's capital, Simferopol, and sentenced him the same day.
Chyrniy, who made a deal with investigators, pleaded guilty.
Chyrniy, along with Ukrainian filmmaker Oleh Sentsov and activists Oleksandr Kolchenko and Hennadiy Afanasyev, was arrested in Crimea in May 2014, weeks after Russia annexed the peninsula from Ukraine via a controversial referendum.
Afanasyev, who also pleaded guilty and made a deal with investigators, was sentenced to seven years in jail in December.
Sentsov and Kolchenko are currently in a Moscow pretrial detention center awaiting trial. They deny any wrongdoings.
If found guilty, they may face up to 20 years in jail.