Новости за 24.02.2017

The Dutch lower house of parliament on Feb. 23 approved the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement, leaving a vote in the Senate after Dutch elections on March 15 as a final hurdle before the deal can enter into force. Read more here.

Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern called for a rethink on sanctions imposed on Russia, saying that the regime of penalties over Kremlin-backed incursions in Ukraine has failed to yield enough progress. Read more here.

BRUSSELS—The World Trade Organization has ruled that a Russian government import ban in 2014 on European Union pigs, pork and other pig products breaches international trade regulations, the EU said Feb. 24. Read more here.

The substance used in the killing of Kim Jong-nam was a “VX nerve agent”, a highly toxic liquid used only in chemical warfare, Malaysian police have said. Read more here.

The government’s resolution to recapitalize nationalized PrivatBank for the amount of Hr 9.8 billion by the issue of 15-year government domestic loan bonds with the indexed value (with reference to the U.S. dollar exchange rate), adopted on Feb. 22, was executed on Feb. 24, according to the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU). According to the […]

It was an early dinner by Parisian standards, 8.40 pm, on a mild spring evening at Prunier, an opulent seafood restaurant near the Arc de Triomphe. Amid the hum of conversation, the cracking of shellfish and the gentle chinking of glasses, Yves Bigot missed the insistent ringing. “Then I saw — multiple missed calls, SMS […]

An Austrian judge has ordered the release of Dmytro Firtash, one of Ukraine’s richest men who was detained earlier this week over alleged links to organised crime in Spain. Read more here.

Independent MP Borislav Bereza arrived with the grey blob-shaped toy on Feb. 24 morning and propped it up on a vacant seat. It’s a mini copy of the sculpture Homunculus Loxodontus by Dutch artist Margriet van Breevoort, which symbolises the experience of patients waiting to see a doctor. The sculpture became an internet meme in […]

The situation in Donbas has a tendency towards de-escalation, OSCE SMM Principal Deputy Chief Monitor Alexander Hug said. The security situation improved in the past week and the OSCE SMM has registered a 20 percent decline in the number of ceasefire breaches, Hug told a Skype conference on Feb. 24. The OSCE SMM registered 180 […]

WASHINGTON – White House chief of staff Reince Priebus asked a top FBI official to dispute media reports that President Donald Trump’s campaign advisers were frequently in touch with Russian intelligence agents during the election, a White House official said. Read more here.

Vienna court decided on Feb. 24 to not to detain Ukrainian tycoon Dmytro Firtash, three days after a decision to extradite him to the United States on bribery allegations and his simultaneous arrest on Spain-based accusations of money laundering. Read more here.

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has lifted claims against 15 importers of liquefied gas and their contractors. The Economic Development and Trade Ministry has annulled sanctions imposed on them. Orders Nos. 261 and 262 dated Feb. 24, 2017 were posted on the website of the ministry. “On February 23, SBU told the ministry that […]

The extradition request for oligarch Dmytro Firtash filed by Spain, and obtained by the Kyiv Post, contains a series of wiretapped phone conversations between individuals linked to the oligarch who Spanish prosecutors allege are members of an organized crime network. The three phone conversations are used as evidence by Spain that Firtash is a leading […]

It is a sign of the times in Estonia, a Baltic state always suspicious of the Kremlin’s ambitions in the region, that Prime Minister Juri Ratas is learning Russian. Read more here.

From the time he began to pursue acting, Max Irons understood it could mean a life of uncertainty. “I was given a fair amount of advice about the unpredictable nature of the acting business,” he says. “You can have a good day immediately followed by a bad day for no discernible reason. There are so […]

ODESA – Law enforcement officers of Odesa region prevented the abduction to inflict grievous bodily harm to deputy head of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc parliamentary faction Oleksiy Honcharenko and detained the organizers and perpetrators of this crime. Odesa region prosecutor Oleh Zhuchenko and head of the SBU in the Odesa region Serhiy Batrakov said at […]

MOSCOW – Russia is holding a funeral for its long-time ambassador to the United Nations who died suddenly earlier this week. Read more here.

Here are some of the highlights of the Reuters interview with U.S. President Donald Trump on Feb. 23. Read more here.

Ukraine’s Shakhtar Donetsk have been defeated by Spain’s RC Celta in a 2016/17 UEFA Europa League Round of 32 reverse match with a 0-2 score on Feb. 23. Read more here.

It seems that peace plans for Ukraine are everywhere these days. Amid a recent surge in violence in eastern Ukraine and yet another failed cease-fire in the nearly 3-year-old conflict are a wave of new proposals to bring peace to the crisis-stricken nation – and from some unexpected places. Read more here.

UNITED NATIONS — The head of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe warned this week that if the parties to the Ukraine conflict do not clearly commit to implementing the Minsk agreement, the situation in eastern Ukraine could quickly escalate. Read more here.

Editor’s Note: The following investigation is supported by Objective Investigative Reporting Program, a Kyiv Post partner and MYMEDIA project funded by the Danish government. See a related interview with Oleksandr Hranovsky here. Oleksandr Hranovsky, a lawmaker from the Bloc of Petro Poroshenko faction in parliament, has risen to the top fast. Before being elected to […]

Three years after the EuroMaidan Revolution prompted President Viktor Yanukovych to flee to Russia, Ukraine’s leaders have not punished the killers of 100 demonstrators. Nor have they made progress in prosecuting Yanukovych-era crimes or recovering billions of stolen dollars. Volodymyr Holodnyuk has spent the last three years hoping to find out who killed his 19-year-old […]

Editor’s Note: The following investigation is supported by Objective Investigative Reporting Program, a Kyiv Post partner and MYMEDIA project funded by the Danish government. See a related story here. Oleksandr Hranovsky, a lawmaker and top ally of President Petro Poroshenko, has generally avoided publicity. A short and heavy man, Hranovsky told the Kyiv Post in […]

In the fast-rotating Ukrainian government, Pavlo Petrenko is a remarkably stable fixture. Having become justice minister in February 2014 right after the EuroMaidan Revolution that toppled the corrupt regime of former President Viktor Yanukovych, Petrenko now begins his fourth year in the job. Most attribute Petrenko’s longevity to his close friendship with Arseniy Yatsenyuk, the […]