Новости за 10.02.2017

The European Union will grant visa-free regime for Ukrainians by June, according to the Head of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker. “We have discussed the issue of visa liberalization. It will happen by summer,” he said at a briefing after his meeting with Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman on Feb. 10 in Brussels. Groysman visited […]

U.S. President Donald Trump has expressed support for an undivided Ukraine in a letter to Lithuania’s president that is likely to be welcomed in Kyiv and by the NATO alliance. Read more here.

A Serbian court has rejected Montenegro’s request to extradite one of its citizens wanted by Montenegrin authorities for his alleged participation in an attempted coup. Serb citizens Predrag Bogicevic and Nemanja Ristic have been arrested on suspicion of involvement in an alleged plot to overthrow Montenegro’s government in October. Read more here.

A number of people’s deputies of Ukraine registered a draft resolution in the Verkhovna Rada on the resignation of Volodymyr Groysman as a prime minister. The authors of the registered on Feb. 10 “Draft decree on the resignation of Prime Minister of Ukraine V.B. Groysman” (No. 6076) are 11 MPs from the Batkivshchyna faction, including the […]

The Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin says he hopes to meet National Front leader Marine Le Pen when he visits Paris in May to persuade her to stop supporting Russia’s annexation of Crimea. Le Pen is currently favorite to reach the runoff of France’s presidential election in May, but her chances of turning that into […]

The EU will give Ukraine 600 million euro to bolster government finances, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said on Feb. 10, as Kyiv faces an upsurge in fighting with Russian-backed separatists. Juncker, speaking after talks with Ukraine Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman, said the country had pressed ahead with reforms despite difficult conditions and the EU […]

NARVA, Estonia ― On weekdays, Marju Prosin is a dental saleswoman. But this weekend, the 37-year-old left her two children at home, pulled on snow fatigues, grabbed a rifle and headed to the frozen forests of Estonia to train for a guerrilla war. She joined dozens of other civilians on a snow-covered hillside here for […]

Russia and the forces under its control in the Donbas prepared for at least a week for their assault in late January on the Ukrainian-held front-line city of Avdiyivka, the Chargé d’Affaires of the U.S. mission to the OSCE Kate Byrnes said on Feb. 9. In a statement delivered for the organization’s Permanent Council in […]

The government agency requested documents from the media outlet proving its compliance with Russian ownership laws, station chief Alexei Venediktov said on Feb. 10. Laws restricting foreign ownership in the media came into force in Russia on Jan. 1, 2016. Foreign citizens – and Russians who hold dual citizenship – are not allowed to found […]

Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Pavlo Klimkin next week will meet with the foreign ministers of the Normandy format countries – Germany, France and Russia, President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko said. “Political items of the Minsk agreements can be implemented only after the obvious and undeniable progress in security matters. And elections at the […]

This week the Ukrainian parliament opened for the sixth of nine scheduled sessions. The lawmakers, just having returned from a week-long holiday, seemed disinclined to do much work, with Verkhovna Rada Chairman Andriy Parubiy sometimes practically begging them to stay in their seats and vote for some important bills. Once – on Feb. 8 – […]

Avdiyivka, eastern Ukraine – Mariika Savkevich plays her family’s old upright piano with practiced skill and intensity, her music defying the war that is being fought just down the road. The 11-year-old smiles at the applause she receives – she is proud of her performance. But she is also too traumatized to be left in […]

The situation in the city of Avdiyivka in Donbas, eastern Ukraine, is tense, but the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) and the local authorities control it, according to a Ukrainian defense ministry spokesman. “The situation in Avdiyivka is uneasy. However, it is completely controlled by the AFU and the local authorities. The soldiers are in […]

Russia is suspected by Italian officials of being behind a sustained hacking attack against the Italian foreign ministry last year that compromised email communications and lasted for many months before it was detected, according to people familiar with the matter. An Italian government official confirmed that the attack took place last spring and lasted for […]

Donetsk (Ukraine) – Thousands of Ukrainians stood in line with flowers on Feb. 10 in the separatist fiefdom of Donetsk to bid farewell to a field commander who was slain in a rocket attack on his office. Kyiv and the insurgents have traded blame for the death of Mikhail Tolstykh with investigators saying a portable rocket […]

The outlook for the global economy is so unpredictable that even crisis-ridden Ukraine’s central bank governor is grappling for new metaphors to describe it. “The situation is very dangerous and nervous everywhere,” Valeriya Gontareva said in interview in Kyiv on Feb. 8. “All these uncertainties, they are no longer black swans, they are black elephants […]

Kyiv expects to reach a deal with the International Monetary Fund by the end of the month to allow the next tranche of aid, Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman said on Feb. 10, and blamed Russia for renewed fighting flared in eastern Ukraine. Speaking after the biggest surge in violence in Ukraine’s industrial east for more […]

WASHINGTON—The White House is investigating how the content of several of President Donald Trump’s conversations with foreign leaders ended up being leaked to the media, a senior administration official said on Feb. 9. The official said Mr. Trump has been bothered by the leaks, which the White House finds “very concerning.”   Read more here.

MOSCOW – The Russian authorities are not sending volunteers to Donbas; this is the free choice of Russian citizens, Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov said. “No volunteers are being sent there via official channels. Of course, we are aware of Russian citizens who have volunteered to protect people in that region from the aggressive actions […]

Google has warned a number of prominent journalists that state-sponsored hackers are attempting to steal their passwords and break into their inboxes, the journalists tell POLITICO. Jonathan Chait of New York Magazine said he received several messages from Google warning him about an attack from a government-backed hacker starting shortly after the election. He said […]

The European Union appears to be softening its stance on a controversial Russian pipeline project, even as it seeks to wean itself off dependence on Russian gas. And it’s unlikely to find much pushback from Washington, D.C. The Nord Stream 2 project, meant to pipe natural gas from Russia across the Baltic Sea into Germany, […]

Nine senators from his own Republican party urged President Donald Trump on Feb. 9 to take a “tough-minded” approach to Russia, joining a growing chorus of lawmakers addressing concerns that he might be too conciliatory toward Moscow. The nine senators, including the Senate’s number two Republican, John Cornyn, wrote in a letter to Trump that […]

It is a scene of fire and brimstone: bursts of flame, steam and toxic gas plumes rise from the pipework of hulking Soviet-era machinery. Nearby, artillery fire generates shockwaves that make the ground tremble. But, wearing protective glasses and a hard hat, Eduard Vladimirovich strolls nonchalantly through the factory and points at a section of […]

The White House is probing ongoing leaks of President Trump’s private conversations with foreign leaders, including a report on Feb. 9 that he criticized a 2011 U.S.-Russia nuclear arms treaty during last month’s call with Russian President Vladi­mir Putin. “We’re looking into the situation, and it’s very concerning,” White House press secretary Sean Spicer said, deploring […]

Donald Trump has told Vladimir Putin he does not want to renew a 2010 arms control treaty that limits the number of strategic nuclear weapons the US and Russia can deploy. Trump angrily denounced the New Start Treaty in a Jan. 28 phone call to the Russian leader, according to sources briefed on the call. […]