Internal Security News:

• "The anti-terrorist operation is still going on and how long it continues depends on how long terrorists remain in our country," Marina Ostapenko, a spokeswoman for Ukraine's State Security Service (SBU), told reporters. The SBU continued to detain people entering the country with large amounts of cash and military equipment.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) The text of Ukraine’s law on amnesty for protestors was published on April 18 in the official Parliament newspaper and will come into effect on April 19.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) Approximately two dozen militants from the "People’s Republic of Donetsk" took control of the eastern Ukrainian town of Seversk.
   
• The head of the separatist Donetsk People's Republic said that his men will not lay down their arms or surrender occupied buildings unless the government in Kyiv resigns. 
   
• The SBU announced that they are stepping up security operations in Kkarkiv Oblast, especially around the city of Kharkiv, by inspecting more vehicles entering the region for weapons, ammunition and explosives.
   

Constitutional Reform News:

• Ukrainian presidential candidate Sergiy Tigipko said he believed that Kyiv should resolve its problems unaided at negotiations. “We have no other way but to reach an agreement between ourselves and resolve the situation.”
   

International Observation News: 

• United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he was encouraged by the initial round of diplomatic negotiations on the crisis in Ukraine held in Geneva, but stressed that all sides need to "follow up words with deeds, as the situation remains extremely volatile."
   
• UK Prime Minister David Cameron told US President Obama in a phone call that Britain would provide an extra 1 million pounds to support the expansion of the OSCE's monitoring mission in Ukraine to de-escalate crisis in the country.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) The mission of the OSCE in Ukraine received instructions from the OSCE headquarters in Vienna to begin implementation of measures to de-escalate the situation in the country as decided upon during the talks in Geneva on the 17th.
   

Diplomacy News: 

• Russia did not admit the presence of its troops in the eastern regions of Ukraine at four-way talks in Geneva, Acting Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Deschytsia said.