Good morning. Amid reports that jailed Ukrainian pilot Nadia Savchenko has received official forms needed for her to be extradited from Russia to Ukraine, it seems that there may be a further twist in the tale, according to RFE/RL's news desk:

Report: Russia Detains Savchenko's Sister At Ukrainian Border

Reuters is reporting that Russia has detained Nadia Savchenko's sister at the Ukrainian border after she visited the jailed Ukrainian pilot in prison.

The news agency said a Ukrainian diplomat was headed to the Russian border on April 28 to help Vira Savchenko, who is being held by Russian border guards after they seized her passport as she attempted to cross the border in a Ukrainian diplomatic car.

The guards told Savchenko that she was on a federal wanted list, said Yarema Dukh, press aide to Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.

While the guards did not say why they detained Savchenko, Russia started a criminal case against her in November for showing "disrespect" toward a Russian judge, whom she called a "schmuck."

Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Dmytro Kulebawrote wrote on Twitter that Savchenko and a Ukrainian consul locked themselves in the diplomatic car after they were detained.

Kyiv sent Vitaly Moskalenko, Ukraine's Consul General in the Russian port city of Rostov-on-Don, to the border to aid Savchenko.

The incident comes hours after news agencies reported the beginning of extradition procedures for Nadia Savchenko, who received a 22-year jail sentence on murder charges that she denies.

Based on reporting by Reuters and Ukraine Today

This ends our live blogging for April 27. Be sure to check back tomorrow for our continuing coverage.

More on the Savchenko extradition forms:

Jailed Ukrainian pilot Nadia Savchenko has received official forms needed for her to be extradited from Russia to Ukraine, her lawyer says.

Attorney Mark Feigin told Russia's RIA Novosti news agency on April 27 that Savchenko had been given the documents and that a lawyer, Nikolai Polozov, would go to Savchenko's jail in Novocherkassk on April 29 and help her fill out the forms.

Feigin added that the entire process of extradition could take many months.

"I have received Savchenko's statement [saying she agrees] to be extradited to serve her prison sentence in Ukraine...I believe that the procedure has started," RIA quoted Feigin as saying.

Savchenko was sentenced by a Russian court to 22 years in jail on March 22 after she was found guilty of involvement in the killing of two Russian journalists during fighting by Russia-backed separatists against Ukrainian forces in eastern Ukraine.

Savchenko has denied any involvement in the incident and says she was abducted and illegally brought to Russia.

Savchenko, 34, is a national hero in Ukraine and is viewed as a symbol of resistance against Russia, which forcibly seized Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in 2014 before illegally annexing it.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko says he and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, have agreed to the framework for a deal to exchange Savchenko for soldiers captured in Ukraine that Kyiv says were active Russian soldiers. (Reuters, Interfax)

Interfax report suggests Nadia Savchenko may be close to leaving Russia:

Nadiya Savchenko's sister, Vera Savchenko, said that the chief of the Novocherkassk remand prison had given Nadiya forms to fill in for the purposes of her extradition to
Ukraine.

"She is now filling in the papers: the application, biographic data, etc. According to the prison's chief Kalganov, these [papers] are mandatory in terms of an extradition. She was told that the procedure requires that these documents must be filled in for extradition purposes. We will hope that it's true," Vera Savchenko said in a comment for TSN (Television News Service) on 1+1 television channel.

Latest on the separatists' claims of civilians killed:

Russia-backed separatist representatives in eastern Ukraine say at least five people were killed in an attack on a checkpoint in the town of Olenivka.

Eduard Basurin, who represents Russia-backed separatists' armed forces in parts of the Donetsk region, said on April 26 that 10 more civilians were injured by artillery fire from the Ukrainian side.

The people had apparently been waiting several hours in a queue to pass into territory controlled by Ukrainian government forces.

Kyiv has denied the separatists' accusations of opening fire on the checkpoint.

A local border-guard spokesman, Anatoliy Kotsurba, was quoted as saying there was an explosion at the checkpoint but he saw no artillery fired from either side, suggesting the blast could have been caused by a bomb.

Fighting between Russia-backed separatists and Ukrainian government forces has been raging for two years, claiming more than 9,100 lives.

The hostilities left some parts of Ukraine's eastern regions of Luhansk and Donetsk under the separatists' control. (AP, TASS, Interfax)

Odesa protesters defiant after attack:

By RFE/RL

Ukrainian protesters demanding the resignation of Odesa's mayor in connection with reported offshore holdings have remained defiant a day after a violent attack on their camp wounded several activists.

Protesters have rebuilt their tent camp outside the Odesa city hall and resumed their peaceful picket against Mayor Hennadiy Trukhanov.

They were assaulted in the early hours of April 26 by a group of about 20 men armed with baseball bats.

Three protesters suffered injuries, including head wounds and a concussion.

Security cameras in the area were turned off at the time and did not capture the attack.

Local authorities said five of the assailants have been detained.

Protesters have been camped out outside city hall since April 10 following revelations contained in the massive Panama Papers document dump that link Trukhanov to secretive transactions.

According to leaked information, the mayor is affiliated with more than 20 offshore holdings in which he identified himself as a Russian citizen even though dual citizenship is illegal in Ukraine.

Russian citizenship could complicate Trukhanov's situation in light of an ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine with Russia-backed separatists and of related tensions in Odesa, the scene of a deadly tragedy with the pro- and anti-Kyiv conflict raging two years ago.

Trukhanov denies the allegations.

The protesters have pinned the attack outside city hall on Trukhanov. On April 26, they blocked entrances to the building with trash cans, fences, and tires.

The violence, which took place just days before the anniversary of the deadly clashes in 2014, has sent jitters through the southern port city.

More than 40 people were killed in Odesa on May 2, 2014, as pro-Russian activists and supporters of Ukrainian unity fought running battles across the city.

Most of the victims were Kremlin supporters who suffocated or jumped out of the windows to their deaths after the labor-union building was set on fire.

On the same night the protest camp was attacked this week, unidentified attackers launched rocket-propelled grenades at a bank in Odesa.

Former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, who was appointed governor of the Odesa region a year ago, has linked these two incidents as part of what he says are efforts by Trukhanov's camp to sow fear in the city ahead of the May 2 commemorations.

Saakashvili accuses Trukhanov and his allies of deliberately turning off security cameras outside city hall ahead of the attack on protesters.

He has called on President Petro Poroshenko to dispatch the National Guard to Odesa in order to quell any unrest in the city.

Speaking in a video statement, Saakashvili said recent events in Odesa bear "all the signs of a collapse of the state." (w/RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service, The Moscow Times)