KYIV, Aug 4 - Ukrainian forces recaptured two villages around the eastern city of Sloviansk, but had been pushed back to the town of Avdiivka's outskirts after being forced to abandon a coal mine regarded as a key defensive position, General Oleksiy Hromov said Thursday.

WASHINGTON, Aug 4 - The White House on Thursday said new intelligence suggests Russia is working to fabricate evidence concerning last week’s deadly strike on a prison housing prisoners of war in a separatist region of eastern Ukraine, The Associated Press reported.

KYIV, Aug 5 – 48% of the polled Ukrainians believe the main threat in the work of the authorities in the next three years is decisions that contradict the Constitution of Ukraine, a poll by the Info Sapiens research agency commissioned by the Center for Joint Action in April-May 2021 shows.

KYIV, Aug 5 – The temporarily occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions in Donbas will never be Russian, President Volodymyr Zelensky said.

KYIV, Aug 5 - Russia and Belarus will hold large-scale cross border military drills next month, Belarus' defense ministry said on Thursday, which Ukraine has described as a threat to its own security and that of NATO, Reuters reported.

KYIV, Aug 5 – Ukraine is developing an ambitious economic strategy for Donbas and in September its roadmap may be presented for approval by the Cabinet, Oleksiy Reznikov, Deputy Prime Minister and First Deputy Head of the Ukrainian delegation to the Trilateral Contact Group said.

KIEV, Aug. 4 – Ukraine has pledged to implement a number of urgent measures for combating corruption as part of its program of financial assistance from the International Monetary Fund.

KIEV, Aug. 5 – The Ukrainian government plans to use projected revenue outperformance for national security needs, the payment of pensions and social benefits in full, and the repayment of delayed VAT refunds, according to the International Monetary Fund's country report titled "Ukraine: First Review Under the Extended Arrangement," published after an IMF Executive Board meeting on Tuesday.

KIEV, Aug. 5 – A mission of the International Monetary Fund for the second review of the Extended Fund Facility program for Ukraine is expected to arrive in the country in the second half of September, First Deputy National Bank of Ukraine Governor Oleksandr Pysaruk said.

KIEV, Aug 5 – The Ukrainian authorities acknowledged that the foreign debt restructuring is advancing more slowly than expected, but said they intend to complete this process by the end of September 2015, according to a memorandum between Ukraine and the International Monetary Fund which was updated following the first review under the Extended Fund Facility program of the IMF.