Section: The Gulf Today (United Arab Emirates)
Ukraine president denies hampering anti-graft efforts
VILNIUS/KIEV: Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko denied on Friday interfering with the work of law enforcement bodies investigating corruption and he urged such agencies to refrain from playing politics. Ukrainian authorities this week have faced accusations of deliberately sabotaging anti-corruption reforms, which are a key condition for...
Ukraine under pressure over corruption
Kiev: Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko is facing mounting pressure from the West for his failure to fight high-level corruption that helped drive pro-EU protests and topple a Russian-backed government in 2014. The fear in Brussels and Washington is that Kiev will follow the failed course of a similar revolution in 2004-2005 and dissolve into...
Supporters free ex-Georgian leader from Ukrainian police
KIEV: Ukrainian supporters of former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili freed him from a police van on Tuesday after his detention on suspicion of assisting a criminal organisation sparked clashes with police in central Kiev. Once freed, Saakashvili raised a hand in a V-for-victory sign — a handcuff still dangling from his wrist as he stood...
EU withholds Ukraine funds amid reform concerns
Brussels: The European Union said on Friday it is withholding 600 million euros in financial assistance to Ukraine because it has not made enough progress on a wide-ranging programme of reforms demanded by the bloc. The EU has already paid out 1.2 billion euros in low-interest loans to Ukraine since 2015 to help it cope with a devastating...
5 soldiers killed as rebel infighting flares up
Kiev: Ukraine said on Friday five of its soldiers had died during fighting in the east, as it accused Russia of ramping up its military presence in the region amid squabbles among warring rebel factions. The spike in fighting came as leaders from the European Union and six former Soviet countries were meeting in Brussels for a summit aimed at...
Tusk slams ‘Russia aggression’ after Ukraine deaths
Brussels: EU President Donald Tusk fired off an angry broadside at the Kremlin Friday, urging European vigilance and condemning “Russia’s aggression” in Ukraine after five soldiers were killed there. The spike in fighting coincided with a summit in Brussels between the EU and six former Soviet countries, where the war between Kiev...
Situation in Luhansk is attempted coup: LNR
MOSCOW: The presence of armed men in the streets of the capital of Ukraine’s breakaway Luhansk region is an attempted coup by a fired local police chief, Igor Plotnitsky, the head of the self-styled “Luhansk People’s Republic” (LNR), said on Wednesday. Plotnitsky sacked Igor Kornet, the local interior minister, on Monday. “How else...
Poland tensions with Ukraine, EU ‘Kremlin plan’
Brussels: European Council President Donald Tusk on Sunday questioned whether tensions between Poland’s rightwing government with Ukraine and the EU is a “Kremlin plan”. “Alarm!” warned Tusk, a former liberal prime minister of Poland, on his personal Twitter account. “Intense dispute with Ukraine, isolation within the European Union,...
Belarus detains Ukraine journalist for ‘spying’
Kiev: A Ukrainian public radio journalist has been detained in Belarus, reportedly on charges of espionage, the head of Ukraine’s state broadcaster said on Friday. Pavlo Sharoyko, who works as Minsk correspondent for UA:Ukrainian Radio, was detained in Belarus, the head of Ukraine’s public broadcasting corporation, Zurab Alasania,...
Putin speaks with Ukraine’s separatist leaders
Moscow: Russian President Vladimir Putin has spoken to eastern Ukraine’s rebel leaders to discuss a prisoner swap, his first publicly acknowledged direct contact with the two pro-Russian separatist republics. The Kremlin said late Wednesday that Putin spoke by telephone with Alexander Zakharchenko, leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk...
