Ukraine president en route to Russia for swap deal

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko is traveling to eastern Russia, taking along with him two Russian prisoners, to be exchanged with Ukrainian pilot Nadiya Savchenko, a report says.

Interfax said the presidential aircraft carrying Russian citizens Yevgeny Yerofeyev and Alexander Alexandrov would shortly leave Kiev for the Russian port city of Rostov-on-Don, where Savchenko has already been transferred.

Back in March, a court in Russia sentenced the helicopter pilot to 22 years in prison for complicity in the death of two Russian journalists in eastern Ukraine two years before.

The 34-year-old pilot, who was fighting in a Ukrainian military group against pro-Russia forces at the time, denied the charges.