Articles :

It is still nearly a month to go for the 18th Ukraine-European Union summit. President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko is positive that the documents on granting Ukraine a visa-free regime will be signed and ratified by the European Parliament ahead of the Summit. However, it is too early to claim victory on this issue.

Petro Poroshenko showed his will to convert the results of the Normandy Four meeting in Berlin into suppression of his domestic political opponents. Volodymyr Groysman’s Government turned six months, which amid a systemic crisis seems to be an already long term in office. Ukrainian legislators could not resist their usual temptation to raise their salaries disproportionate to general economic growth.

38% of Russians have a “mostly negative” attitude toward Ukraine and another 18% - "totally negative", Ukrainian MPs voted to increase their own salaries to UAH 36,250, a subsidy from the state budget to cover the deficit of the Pension fund in 2017 amounts to UAH 156 billion.

The Normandy Four meeting in Berlin has left a mixed impression and seems to have not brought the Donbas conflict settlement anywhere closer. Petro Poroshenko in Brussels felt the support of the EU leadership and the NATO Secretary General. The parliaments of Ukraine and Poland passed a Declaration of Remembrance and Solidarity.

On Wednesday, President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko will have to use all the eloquence he’s got. During the Normandy Four meeting, the sides will encourage Russia to implement Minsk agreements in terms of security.

One of the leaders of the Jewish community in the Russian Federation spoke with UNIAN, telling why it is not time today for heated discussions in the Ukrainian-Jewish relations, how a number of Russian Jewish organizations built into Putin's "power vertical" serve as tools to incite hatred against Ukraine in Russia, and why Jews had to be the first ones to recognize the Holodomor as genocide of Ukrainians.

Petro Poroshenko stressed the change in the Ukrainian position on the implementation of the Minsk agreements. The start of the heating season is traditionally full of political overtones. Creation of the National Corps party has made quite a stir in Ukraine’s right wing politics.

Former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who in May 2016 was appointed a “non-staff” adviser to President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko, in an interview with UNIAN has told what exactly was discussed at the first meeting of Friends of Ukraine, stressed the need to prolong the anti-Russian sanctions for 12 months instead of six, and the need to update the existing format of negotiations on Donbas.

Five Crimean Tatars were wrongfully arrested in the occupied Crimea; 131 cases of poisoning by counterfeit alcohol were recorded in Ukraine; 280,000 Ukrainians took part in the ATO; UAH 2.4 billion was the total amount of payments to IDPs in 2016.

The autumn session of PACE saw an unexpected victory for Ukraine. Parties to the Normandy Four continue searching for the format of meeting, limiting communication to telephone calls at the moment. Putin and Erdogan once again demonstrated friendliness, this time flavored with intentions to cooperate in the issue of energy supplies.

In an exclusive interview with UNIAN, Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Groysman told UNIAN, how customs officers across the country intentionally destroyed their scanner equipment, called the number of state-owned companies that serve to fatten the pockets of corrupt officials, predicted when the Ukrainians should expect significant growth of the national economy; and explained his position on the moratorium on farmland sales.

Farmland sales moratorium looks like a tactical ploy in the political struggle in Ukraine. Members of the coalition argued a bit too harshly around the ideological issues. Sociologists are turning a blind eye to most of the younger political projects.

The arrest in Moscow of a Ukrainian journalist Roman Sushchenko sparked another round of discussion on the need to introduce a visa travel regime with Russia. Victoria Nuland is set for a diplomatic feat. Johannes Hahn is optimistic about Georgia and Ukraine getting a visa-free regime with the EU.

Nine members of the UN Security Council voted against the Russian resolution on Syria; 53 people died in Ukraine from the use of surrogate alcohol; $700,000 of debt of the occupied Luhansk for water and electricity will be compensated for by the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Since the hasty escape from Ukraine of its disgraced ex-president Viktor Yanukovych, nearly 850 criminal cases involving charges of high treason have been launched by the country’s law enforcers. The Prosecutor General’s Office wants to add to this impressive and nasty list a relevant criminal case against the fugitive Yanukovych.

The situation in Donbas remains an important factor affecting Ukraine’s internal policy. The judicial reform was launched against the backdrop of an ugly vote in the Rada for the dismissal of "anti-Maidan judges". The prosecutor general tried himself in a role of an anti-monopoly watchdog.

Russia will chair the UN Security Council for one month; the Verkhovna Rada passed at its extraordinary meeting 21 resolutions on dismissal of judges; some 100 individuals are involved in the downing of MH17, according to the Joint Investigation Team.

The international investigation has proved that the Boeing 777 flight MH17 in the summer of 2014 was downed from a Russian air defense system Buk, which was brought into Ukraine on the eve of the tragedy and transported back to Russia shortly after the terrible crime was committed. The president of Israel showed the lack of deep knowledge of Ukrainian history. First televised debates of the U.S. presidential candidates saw no mentions of Ukraine.

For the next regular parliamentary elections to be held under the new rules, these rules must be adopted today. But politicians at the moment have no vision of an adequate electoral system for Ukraine. Neither do they want to change the composition of the Central Election Commission, turning this simple procedural issue into an endless soap opera.

The murder of two patrol officers in the city of Dnipro has stirred up the Ukrainian public. Leader of pro-separatist Oplot movement Yevgeny Zhilin was shot dead outside Moscow. The Verkhovna Rada has deemed the State Duma of the Russian Federation illegitimate. Darker clouds amass over the so-called "Savchenko law".