Ukraine

KIEV, Nov 14 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Ukraine has said Iran is dragging its feet on investigating the downing of a Ukrainian airliner near Tehran in January by not sharing information and not responding to requests for cooperation.

Iran has also rejected Kyiv’s calls for life sentences for those responsible, Deputy Prosecutor General Gyunduz Mamedov said, in written comments ahead of a third round of talks on the crash next month.

KIEV, November 12. /TASS/: More than half of Ukrainians believe that Ukraine and Russia will have better relations in the future, according to a poll conducted by the Kiev International Institute of Sociology.

A total of 56.6% of those polled believe that Ukraine will improve relations with Russia in the future. As many as 30.1% said that tensions would persist between the two countries, while 12.6% found it hard to respond and 0.7% refused to answer.

KIEV, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- The Ukrainian government does not plan to introduce a complete lockdown amid the growing number of COVID-19 cases in the country, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said on his Telegram page on Wednesday.

Shmyhal noted that the government will introduce stricter regulations in the event of a further deterioration of the pandemic in the country.

KIEV, Oct 29 (NNN-XINHUA) – Systemic violations of flight rules have been found to be main causes of the An-26 military plane crash in Sept, in north-east Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister, Oleg Urusky, said on Wednesday.

The main causes of the crash included a lack of effective control over the organisation and flights, systemic violations of flight rules and insufficient professional training of the crew, local media quoted Urusky as saying.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Belarus’ authoritarian president on Saturday visited a prison to talk to opposition activists, who have been jailed for challenging his re-election that was widely seen as manipulated and triggered two months of protests.

President Alexander Lukashenko spent more than four hours talking to his jailed political foes at the Minsk prison that belongs to Belarus’ State Security Committee, which still goes under its Soviet-era name, KGB.

KIEV, October 3. /TASS/: Former Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko, a member of the Verkhovna Rada (parliament), has been hospitalized in Kiev with double pneumonia caused by COVID-19, his wife Marina Poroshenko said on Saturday.

"Pyotr Alexeevich has been taken to one of Kiev’s hospitals that treat coronavirus patients. In spite of the fact that my husband suffers from double pneumonia, he has a strong willpower that he demonstrates in his fight against the disease," she said on the YouTube channel of Poroshenko’s European Solidarity party.

KIEV, September 26. /TASS/: Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has ordered to suspend all flights of An-26 military transport planes until the causes of the deadly crash near Kharkov are established, the deputy chief of the president’s office Oleg Tatarov said.

"The president ordered to suspend all flights of these planes until all causes of the tragedy are established. This order is being implemented," Tatarov told Ukraine-24 TV channel on Saturday.

KYIV (Reuters) - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Saturday the causes of a military plane crash which killed 26 people would be investigated promptly and impartially.

A military transport plane carrying air force cadets crashed and burst into flames near a highway in northeastern Ukraine on Friday evening.

The State Emergency Service of Ukraine said 27 people had been on board the plane - seven crew members and 20 students. Only one cadet managed to survive.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus assumed his sixth term of office Wednesday during an inauguration ceremony that officials did not announce in advance after weeks of mass protests against the authoritarian leader’s reelection, which opposition activists maintain was rigged.

State news agency Beltra reported that the swearing-in ceremony took place in the capital of Minsk with several hundred top government officials, lawmakers, representatives of media organizations and other prominent figures present.

KIEV, Septeber 16. /TASS/: Former Belarusian presidential candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya has said that the Belarusian opposition is ready to provide "security guarantees" to incumbent head of state Alexander Lukashenko, if he steps down "peacefully".