Another Ukraine update from our news desk:
Amnesty International says both warring sides in eastern Ukraine are almost daily perpetrating war crimes, including torture and summary killings of prisoners.
In a new report released on May 22, the rights group said it has heard accounts from former captives of government and separatist forces of savage beatings, torture with electric shocks, kicking and stabbings.
Amnesty says it interviewed 17 captives of the separatists and 16 others held by Ukrainian government forces for its report.
Concern about the treatment of prisoners comes as Ukrainian authorities face scrutiny this week for publicly displaying two men they say were Russian soldiers captured while fighting alongside separatists.
Amnesty is urging UN agencies and experts to visit detention sites in Ukraine to meet those being held by both sides. (AP)
Some Riga-related info from our news desk:
RIGA -- The European Union and Ukraine have signed a 1.8 billion-euro ($2 billion) loan deal to help revive Ukraine's ailing economy.
EU and Ukrainian officials signed the agreement on May 22 at a summit of leaders of EU nations and six countries identified as the EU's eastern partners: Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine, Belarus, Armenia, and Azerbaijan.
The Associated Press news agency reports that the agreement, part of the EU's Macro-Financial Assistance (MFA) program, would require Ukraine to adopt a series of reforms, including anticorruption measures, to remedy structural problems in its economy. The agreement brings the total amount of EU assistance to Ukraine in the past two years to about 6 billion euro.
At the Riga summit, the EU also promised grants of 200 million euros ($223 million) to support small and medium-sized businesses in Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova. (AP)