Ukraine

KIEV, December 20. /TASS/: Russia's gas company Gazprom will pay $3 billion to Ukraine in accordance with the Stockholm arbitration ruling, advisor to the Ukrainian president Andrey Ermak said on Friday.

"We are returning home with very good news and will have a transit contract on the conditions beneficial for Ukraine," Ermak told Obschestvennoye Televidenie TV channel. "Thanks to these agreements, Ukraine will get $3 billion in accordance with the Stockholm arbitration ruling," he added.

KIEV, December 13. /TASS/: Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has submitted to the Verkhovna Rada (national parliament) draft amendments to the country’s constitution on the decentralization of power.

The document was registered by the Verkhovna Rada on Friday. The text of the bill is not available on the parliament’s website.

KIEV, December 14. /TASS/: Ukrainian Foreign Minister Vadim Pristayko said that the country’s constitution will be amended for decentralization on the entire territory of Ukraine.

"Ukraine remains committed to the [Minsk] agreements. We go ahead with constitutional amendments that envisage decentralization all over Ukraine," he said.

KIEV, December 14. /TASS/: Kiev’s Pechersky District Court ruled to place in custody for two months Yulia Kuzmenko, a suspect in the high-profile murder of journalist Pavel Sheremet, Judge Sergei Vovk said.

"Custody until February 8 shall be applied," the judge said on Friday.

Earlier in the day, the court ordered a suspected accomplice in the assassination, Yana Dugar, to be placed under house arrest. Both Kuzmenko and Dugar were participants in the military operation in Donbass.

KIEV, December 12. /TASS/: Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has said he thinks it is necessary to change the Minsk Agreements.

"It will be very difficult, but we can and we must change them," Zelensky told "1+1" TV channel when asked about whether the Minsk Agreements should be amended.

KIEV, Dec. 12 (Xinhua) -- The National Police of Ukraine detained suspects in the murder of famous journalist Pavel Sheremet, Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said on his social media page on Thursday.

"The National Police have just detained and, with the consent of the Prosecutor General's Office, served suspects in the murder of journalist Pavel Sheremet with the notice of charges," Avakov wrote.

KIEV, December 8. /TASS/: Ukraine will adhere to the "red lines" in its position that it will outline in Paris at the Normandy Four meeting with the leaders of Russia, Germany and France, Verkhovna Rada Speaker Dmitry Razumkov said on Sunday.

"On that day [Paris meeting - TASS] there should be no politics and struggle, there should be only a state position for the sake of Ukraine. "Red lines" will be observed and our territories will be returned," Razumkov wrote on his Facebook page, giving no further details.

KIEV, December 8. /TASS/: The death toll in the December 4 fire at the economics, law and hospitality business college in the Ukrainian port city of Odessa has reached 10, the State Emergency Service reported on Sunday.

"A total of 10 people have been killed in the fire," the statement published on its website said. Earlier on Sunday, rescuers discovered two more bodies under the rubble. Earlier reports said eight people had died in the blaze.

KIEV, December 7. /TASS/: Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council has approved a scenario of Donbass reintegration on Saturday at a closed-door meeting held ahead of the Normandy Four summit, the council’s Secretary Aleksei Danilov said.

"Today, the National Security and Defense Council’s meeting approved one of the scenarios which will be implemented as the main one at the moment," he said quoted by the Ukrainian daily Gazeta as saying.

8 December 2019; AFP: The International Monetary Fund said Saturday it had reached an agreement in principle with Ukraine on a new $5.5 billion, three-year aid program for the war-scarred country.

IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva welcomed the deal, adding it was subject to IMF management approval.