Ukraine

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The highest court in Belarus convicted an aspiring rival to the nation’s authoritarian president on corruption charges that he rejected as politically motivated and sentenced him Tuesday to 14 years in prison.

Viktor Babariko, the head of a commercial bank owned by Russian natural gas company Gazprom, had hoped to challenge President Alexander Lukashenko last year, but he was arrested before the country’s August 2020 presidential election and prohibited from registering as a candidate.

KIEV, July 3 (Xinhua) -- Ukraine's Ministry of Finance confirmed that Ukraine has received a 350-million-U.S.-dollar loan from the World Bank, Interfax-Ukraine news agency reported on Friday.

In late June, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said that the government had signed an agreement on the loan with the World Bank.

The funds will be used to boost Ukraine's economic recovery from the COVID-19 impact, provide social assistance for the vulnerable groups and promote reforms of certain sectors such as the land market, according to Shmyhal.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Central and Eastern European nations are anxious about the coming summit meeting between U.S. President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin, wary of what they see as hostile intentions from the Kremlin.

Some in the countries that once were part of the Soviet Union or the Moscow-led Warsaw Pact during the Cold War worry that Washington could scale down support for its allies in the region in a bid to secure a more stable and predictable relationship with Russia.

KIEV, June 8 (Xinhua) -- Ukraine is ready to promote its mutually beneficial cooperation with China to a new level, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said in a congratulatory letter to a high-level Ukrainian-Chinese forum held here on Tuesday.

In his letter, Shmyhal spoke highly of China's great achievements in various fields in recent years and pointed out that China is a good friend and strategic partner of Ukraine.

KIEV, Jun 6 (NNN-IRNA) – Iran is ready to pay 150,000 U.S. dollars in compensation, to the Ukrainian families for each victim killed in a passenger airplane, downed near Tehran, the Iranian Embassy in Ukraine said Friday.

KIEV, June 4 (Xinhua) -- A record of a UN mission showed the ongoing conflict in Donbass killed 152 children and injured 146 children from April 2014 to April 2021, the Office of the Ombudsman of Ukraine said Friday.

"Unfortunately, these painful statistics do not fully reflect the scale of the losses suffered by children during the long-lasting armed conflict," the office said on its official Facebook page, citing the data from the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine.

KIEV, June 3 (Xinhua) -- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday discussed the security situation in Donbass with a delegation of visiting U.S. senators.

"This meeting is very important for us, as it reaffirms that the United States is our strategic partner. Especially now, at a very tense time," said Zelensky.

The senators said that the United States is closely monitoring the security situation in the east of the country and supports Ukraine in a peaceful settlement of the conflict.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A dissident journalist arrested when Belarus diverted his flight said in a video from prison that he has been set up by an unidentified associate.

The footage of Raman Pratasevich was part of an hour-long TV program aired late Wednesday by the state-controlled ONT channel. In the film, the 26-year-old Pratasevich is also shown saying that protests against Belarus’ authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko are now pointless amid a tough crackdown and suggesting that the opposition wait for a more opportune moment.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — As fear of repression rises among Belarusians following the arrest of a dissident journalist whose plane was forcibly diverted to Minsk, those who want to leave the country are feeling increasingly cornered.

Its land borders already were under tight restrictions, and now the European Union has banned flights from Belarus after a jetliner was diverted to Minsk earlier this week and authorities arrested a dissident journalist who was aboard.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Raman Pratasevich has been part of the Belarus political opposition for over a decade and has long feared the authorities would try to abduct him, even though he was living abroad. The 26-year-old dissident journalist couldn’t imagine, however, just how far they would go.