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A Russian Su-24 bomber was shot down by the Turkish Air Force on the border with Syria; 34 of 422 MPs have not missed a single meeting of Rada’s committees in a year of their work in parliament, the state budget received UAH 136.9 million in 2015 from privatization.

Former Ambassador of the Republic of Moldova to Ukraine, the expert on frozen conflicts, Ion Stavila, has told in an interview with UNIAN about the differences between the conflicts in Transnistria, Crimea and Donbas; how the mood of Transnistrians has changed, and why the broad autonomy is better than federalization.

Turkish fighter jets shot down Vladimir Putin’s vanity, and Ukraine tried to take advantage from this fact. The annexed Crimean peninsula was deprived of electricity supplies from mainland Ukraine. The U.S. allocated $300 million for Ukraine in the world's largest defense budget.

Anniversaries of the Euromaidan and the Revolution were held without pathos and sense of deep satisfaction with the changes in the country. Ukraine stopped supplying electricity to the annexed Crimea under dramatic circumstances. The runoff mayoral elections in Ukraine’s major cities proved problematic for some of the winners.

The terrorist attacks in Paris drew a global response, and they may forever change the power structure in international relations. Russia almost simultaneously offered Ukraine the installment plan for the “Yanukovych’s loan” and vowed to introduce embargo against the Ukrainian exports. EU Commissioner Johannes Hahn believes that the European Commission will estimate the success of Ukraine and Georgia in meeting conditions for visa liberalization.

The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Fatou Bensouda, voiced a statement, rather unpleasant to the Ukrainian law enforcement agencies: the ICC sees no crimes against humanity committed during the Euromaidan in 2014. The reason is the low quality of evidence provided by the Ukrainian investigators over an almost two-year period since the bloody atrocity.

Mayoral elections across Ukraine brought plenty of surprises. The MPs finally managed to adopt EU-required “visa liberalization package,” some of them noticeably struggling to reach psychological compromise with their perception of “anti-discrimination” draft law. Ukrainian Prime Minister sees a dark cloud on his political horizon.

Two hostages were released from militant captivity in eastern Ukraine, 77% of Russians consider unlikely any protests in Russia against declining living standards and for the protection of their rights, at least 153 people were killed in a series of terrorist attacks in Paris.

Recently, the Baltic States have decided to calculate the damage caused to Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia during the rule of the Soviet Union over this region, and to demand compensation from the Russian Federation. UNIAN gathered expert opinions on whether Ukraine could benefit from this experience.

The terrorist attacks in Paris can seriously change the life of Europe. The Verkhovna Rada has finally given birth to amended legislation, required for the implementation of a Visa Liberalization Action Plan with the EU. EU High Commissioner for Foreign Affairs Federica Mogherini confirmed that the lifting of sanctions against Russia is tied to the fulfillment of the Minsk agreements. Putin has shown, once again, his trademark cynicism.

The servants of Themis tried to demonstrate their multi-vector nature, without much success though. The conflict between MPs Kuzhel and Teteruk cannot destroy the parliamentary Coalition due to its lack of unity. The situational constitutional majority failed to pass the bills required to obtain the visa-free regime.

Verkhovna Rada failed astonishingly to adopt a package of bills required by the European Union to pave way for Ukraine getting a long-awaited visa-free regime with the EU. Vladimir Putin and Sergei Lavrov emphasize the importance of developing ties with a 30-million Russian diaspora around the world. Polish President Andrzej Duda opposed the construction of North Stream-2 pipeline.

Head of the Constitutional Court of Lithuania Dainius Žalimas has told UNIAN about the probability of exclusion of Russia’s Constitutional Court from the Conference of European Constitutional Courts for its ruling, allowing Russia to annex Crimea.

Although the local election campaign has not yet been formally completed (On November 15 and November 27 the major cities will host the second round of mayoral elections), political developments made this year’s Halloween and early November rich on the news.

On October 25, when Ukraine was choosing the local authorities, Poland held elections of deputies of the Sejm. UNIAN gathered expert opinions on what Ukraine should expect from the renewed Polish Parliament and future government formed by conservatives from Prawo i Sprawedliwosc (Law and Order) Party.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and his Turkmen counterpart Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedow made another attempt to revive the Ukrainian-Turkmen relations. In Russia, on the falsified pretext, the library of Ukrainian literature is being destroyed. U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey R. Pyatt allows himself some quite an undiplomatic language.

Renowned political analyst Arkady Dubnov told UNIAN why Putin launched a military campaign in the Middle East, and why Russians support a new war.

Local elections were held with some violations, but they created certain prospects for Ukraine. Militants adopted the tactics of blackmail in negotiations with the Ukrainian representatives. The attempts to challenge the law on lustration in Constitutional Court by politicians from the Opposition Bloc saw an emotional response from its authors.

10 political parties violated the “day of silence” before the local elections, 73.8% of Ukrainians said they would not intend to sell their votes, 409.3 kilometers of Ukraine’s border with Russia in the temporarily occupied territories of Donbas is not controlled by Kyiv government.

Russian officials have been voicing Putin’s messages on Ukraine as revolvers. Ukrainian-German business forum in Berlin was accompanied by an exchange of courtesies at a government level. Standard & Poor`s rating agency has significantly increased Ukraine’s credit rating. Unexpected news have come from the US and Canada.