BERLIN, Oct. 23 - Prime Minister Yatseniuk assured German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday that Ukraine will continue to be a reliable shipper of Russian natural gas to Europe.

KIEV, Oct. 23 – EU sanctions against Russia will either be strengthened or eased depending on the implementation of the Minsk agreements, Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel said.

BERLIN, Oct. 23 - The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development will disburse a $300 million loan to help Ukraine pay for European natural gas imports during the winter, Naftogaz Ukrayiny reported Friday.

KIEV, Oct. 25 - President Petro Poroshenko's fragile ruling coalition faced a major survival test Sunday in local elections marred swiftly by polls failing to open in the strategic port of Mariupol, AFP reported.

KIEV, Oct. 23 – United States President Barack Obama has vetoed a bill on the U.S. defense budget but this won't affect the country's assistance to Ukraine, the Ukrainian Embassy to the U.S. said.

KIEV, Oct. 23 – Energy and Coal Industry Minister Volodymyr Demchyshyn said he opposes disconnecting Crimea from the power grid as proposed by a petition on the Ukrainian president's website.

KIEV, Oct. 23 – Ukraine is expecting that all member states of the European Union will ratify the Ukraine-EU Association Agreement by the end of 2015, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk has said.

BRUSSELS, Oct. 22 - If there is no green light to the signing of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement from the European Parliament's monitoring mission of former EP President Pat Cox and former Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski, Brussels will not sign the document, Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said.

KIEV, Oct. 24 - Vitaly Klichko, the leader of the opposition Udar party, on Thursday declared his intention to run for president in 2015, hours after approval of a bill that may bar him from the election.

KIEV, Oct. 25 - The Ukrainian government plans by the end of the year to sign a production sharing agreement (PSA) with Royal Dutch Shell that will open way for a major shale gas extraction project.