It's official, the sanctions are hurting...
Putin won't use gas to pressure Ukraine:
Russian President Vladimir Putin has met with the head of gas giant Gazprom and said Russia will not use the price of gas as an instrument to pressure Ukraine.
Putin told Gazprom CEO Aleksei Miller the price of gas for Ukraine should be consistent with the price Ukraine's neighbors pay.
Russia was criticized last year for hiking the price of gas to Ukraine to a rate that was some $100 higher than the world market price.
Putin also told Miller that Gazprom should ensure uninterrupted supplies to "all partners, especially in the southeast of Ukraine," an apparent reference to the Luhansk and Donetsk regions currently controlled by pro-Russian separatists.
Miller said Gazprom had withdrawn the "take or pay" clause from gas agreements with Ukraine, which required Ukraine to pay for all the gas it signed contracts for whether Ukraine took all the gas or not.
Miller also said the price of gas for Ukraine as of April 1 was $247 per 1,000 cubic meters and that price included a discount. (TASS and Interfax)
This ends our live-blogging for April 8. Be sure to check back tomorrow for our continuing coverage.
Good morning. We'll start the live blog this morning with this update from RFE/RL's news desk:
Amnesty International says it has new evidence of "execution-style killings" by pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.
The London-based human rights organization said on April 9 that it had videos of three government soldiers shown alive in captivity, then dead in a morgue with bullet wounds to their heads and upper bodies.
It also quoted witnesses as saying that another soldier was shot at point-blank range by a separatist commander.
Amnesty's Europe and Central Asia Deputy Director Denis Krivosheev said the torture, ill-treatment, and killing of captured, surrendered, or wounded soldiers are war crimes.
He said such claims "must be promptly, thoroughly and impartially investigated, and the perpetrators prosecuted in fair trials by recognized authorities."
The allegations come after a rebel commander told the Kyiv Post newspaper that he had killed 15 captured Ukrainian soldiers.
More than 6,000 people have been killed in the conflict between government forces and Russian-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine over the past year.
Rights groups have accused both sides of abuses.