Finland's Navy Fires Warning Charges Near Suspected Submarine
Finland says its navy fired small underwater depth charges on April 28 as a warning against a suspected submarine in waters near Helsinki.
The grenade-size charges were fired amid growing military tensions with neighboring Russia, fueled by Russian border incursions and air force flights into Finnish airspace, since the conflict in eastern Ukraine began a year ago.
Finnish Defense Minister Carl Haglund did not say whether Russia was involved in April 28 incident in the Gulf of Finland.
But Haglund said: "It is always serious if our territorial waters have been violated."
Reports of a submarine spotted near Stockholm last year led to Sweden's biggest mobilization since the Cold War.
Regional tensions were reflected earlier in April after a joint statement by the Nordic countries -- Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, and Iceland -- that directly cited the Russian "challenge" as grounds to increase defense cooperation.
Based on reporting by Reuters and AFP
Poroshenko Warns Of War Threat As Truce Violations Continue
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko says the threat of war is "hanging over" the country as cease-fire violations continue in eastern Ukraine.
Poroshenko, speaking at an international conference on Ukraine in Kyiv on April 28, said the country needs aid and "solidarity" to prevent war from "erupting" and to resolve the situation in the Donbas region where Russian-backed separatists control territory.
More than 6,100 people have been killed in the past year as government forces battled the rebels.
Poroshenko's comments came as military officials said the separatists had resumed using rocket launchers that are banned under a February cease-fire agreement signed in Minsk.
Meanwhile, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said in a video address at the Kyiv conference that economic sanctions against Russia should remain in effect until the complete fulfillment of the Minsk agreement.
Russia has denied having troops in Ukraine.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk on April 28 told delegates at the international conference that Ukraine has received far less financial aid than Greece, even though Athens has no war or "Russian tanks" on its territory.
Based on reporting by Interfax and AP
In today's Daily Vertical video blog, Brian Whitmore looks at the Night Wolves' controversial jaunt across Europe and asks if these burly nationalist Russian bikers trundling toward Poland are just a big distraction -- diverting our attention away from more important things, particularly the worsening situation in eastern Ukraine:
Ukraine Detains Former Crimean Lawmaker Suspected Of Treason
By RFE/RL
Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) has detained a former member of the Crimean parliament wanted by Kyiv on suspicion of treason.
Markiyan Lubkivskiy, an adviser to the SBU chief, wrote on Facebook on April 28 that former Crimean lawmaker Vasyl Hanysh was detained at the Kalanchak checkpoint in the southern Kherson region near Russian-controlled Crimea.
Lubkivskiy said Hanysh would "transported in the nearest future to Kyiv, where investigators of the Prosecutor-General's Office are waiting for him."
The Prosecutor-General's Office is investigating several current and former lawmakers in Crimea on suspicion of helping Russia take over Crimea in March 2014 and violating the rights of the peninsula’s residents.
Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine after sending troops there and staging a secession referendum that was declared illegal in an overwhelming vote in the UN General Assembly.
Here is today's map of the security situation in eastern Ukraine, according to the National Security and Defense Council (CLICK TO ENLARGE):
