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Over the past 10 years Ukraine’s national debt increased up to 80% of GDP, while debt service costs exceeded defense spending. Experts believe that the country has no alternative yet to external borrowing, therefore it needs rapid economic growth, to get out of debt.

Almost 12,000 Ukrainian children require adoption. But due to the nature of Ukrainian society and national legislation, many orphans continue and will continue to grow without parents. Moreover, about 25,000 parentless kids, once grown up, will become homeless as well.

Ukraine is not a poor country. But the incomes of citizens are among the lowest in the region. This cannot be changed by raising the minimum wage or taking money away from the oligarchs. The only way is to create conditions for a significant growth of the country's GDP.

The number of Polish expats working for the Ukrainian state has increased. Additionally to the advisor on reforms Mr Balcerowicz, Ukrzaliznytsia CEO Mr Balczun, former transport minister of Poland Slawomir Nowak on Monday took up office of the head of the controversial state motorway agency Ukravtodor.

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.

The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted in first reading the draft state budget-2017, Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman presented a report on six months of the Cabinet’s work, while the World Bank has provided $500 million for Ukraine’s gas purchases – these are the main economic news of the past week.

The death of Russian citizen Arsen Pavlov, a Donbas militant warlord aka "Motorola" who had made a sky-rocketing career during the war in Donbas, having requalified from a carwash guy in Russia’s Rostov into a murderer, is neither the first nor the last one we are to witness in the areas of eastern Ukraine temporarily occupied by the Kremlin-controlled forces.

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.

The Ukrainian authorities gave start to the heating season, the European Union put forward new conditions for Ukraine to obtain macro-financial assistance, while the government promised to find incentives for the development of national industry in the hope to accelerate the economy growth.

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.

Kyiv hosts the annual international exhibition Arms and Security - 2016. This is the 13th arms expo held in Ukraine, which in its scope beats all previous ones.

Ukraine’s Minister of Infrastructure has told in an interview with UNIAN about projects that will see funding from a $1 billion loan, plans to increase rail fares, and performance of CEOs of Ukrainian Railways [Ukrzaliznytsia] and Ukraine’s State Postal Service [Ukrposhta].

Over the last three years, the Ukrainians have already forgotten the notorious convoys roaming Kyiv streets creating traffic havoc to the comfort of the former president and prime minister, but the army of bodyguards serving the lower rank officials has not gone anywhere. Meanwhile, state funding, the one actually coming from people's pockets, of the agencies providing such protection has been increasing ever since.