Ukraine

KIEV, September 27. /TASS/: Kiev is concerned of a huge reduction or a complete halt of gas transit to Hungary via Ukraine on the back of the long-term gas supply contract bypassing Ukraine inked between Budapest and Gazprom, CEO of the Operator of Ukrainian Gas Transport System Sergey Makogon wrote in Facebook on Monday.

"Despite the contract [on gas transit to Europe between Russia and Ukraine] by 2024, we expect a further significant reduction or a complete halt of transit to Hungary via Ukraine," the top manager said.

KYIV, Sept 27 (Reuters) - Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko warned on Monday of a joint response with Russia to military exercises involving troops from NATO member countries in neighbouring Ukraine.

Lukashenko, who gave no details of the response, also blamed the West for what he said was a looming humanitarian catastrophe this winter after migrants were left stranded and freezing on the Belarusian-Polish border.

KYIV, Sept 23 (Reuters) - Ukraine's parliament passed a law on Thursday to order "oligarchs" to register and stay out of politics, a day after an attempt to kill a top aide to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, which officials said could have been a response to the reform.

The law provides a definition for an oligarch and gives a body headed by the president, the National Security and Defence Council, the power to determine who meets the criteria.

KYIV, Sept 22 (Reuters) - Ukrainian police are trying to work out who ordered unidentified individuals to try to murder a top aide of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy after his car was sprayed with automatic gunfire on Wednesday morning in an attack that shocked the political elite.

Serhiy Shefir, the top aide and a close personal friend of Zelenskiy's, escaped unscathed, but his driver was badly wounded and hospitalised.

KIEV, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- Ukraine is developing a plan to bring down the country's shadow economy to 25 percent of GDP over the next three years, First Vice Prime Minister Oleksiy Lyubchenko said on Friday.

"Today, according to the Ministry of Economy's preliminary calculations, the shadow economy reached 30 percent of the GDP. At the moment, we have gathered to work out proposals for de-shadowing the economy in all sectors," Lyubchenko told a meeting of an interdepartmental working group.

KIEV, September 8. / TASS /: The Ukrainian parliament (Verkhovna Rada)’s resolution to address the US Congress in terms of granting the country the status of a major non-NATO ally (MNNA) did not gain the sufficient support for its adoption.

On Wednesday, at an extraordinary meeting of the Ukrainian parliament, only 24 out of 226 deputies required supported the appeal.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A court in Belarus on Monday sentenced two leading opposition activists to lengthy prison terms, the latest move in the relentless crackdown Belarusian authorities have unleashed on dissent in the wake of last year’s anti-government protests.

Maria Kolesnikova, a top member of the opposition Coordination Council, has been in custody since her arrest last September. A court in Minsk found her guilty of conspiring to seize power, creating an extremist organization and calling for actions damaging state security and sentenced her to 11 years in prison.

KIEV, Sept. 3 (Xinhua) -- Ukraine is seeking to diversify its energy sources by importing liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Qatar, Ukraine's energy ministry said Thursday.

"LNG is one of the alternative directions of natural gas supplies to Ukraine, which can ensure the diversification of energy deliveries," Ukraine's Deputy Energy Minister Maksym Nemchynov said during the second meeting of the joint Ukrainian-Qatari intergovernmental commission on economic, trade and technical cooperation in Kiev.

KIEV, Sept. 2 (Xinhua) -- The United States and Ukraine have signed a Strategic Defense Framework agreement, which is set to define a new stage of bilateral cooperation in the field of defense and security, the Ukrainian presidential press service said Wednesday.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Belarus has ordered the closure of the country’s largest independent journalists’ organization, the latest move by authorities to suppress critical reporting in a yearlong crackdown on dissent.

Friday’s order by the country’s supreme court to liquidate the Belarusian Association of Journalists follows the jailing of some 30 journalists, raids on newspaper offices, blocking the websites of major independent media and closing the PEN Center writers’ organization that was headed by Nobel literature laureate Svetlana Alexieveich.