SIMFEROPOL, March 25 - Crimea's indigenous Tatars are considering their own referendum on whether to be part of Ukraine or Russia, the leader of the Muslim minority said on Tuesday, in a challenge to Moscow that could further destabilize the region.

KIEV, March 25 - Ukraine will continue to pay lower gas prices to Russia in April even if Moscow moves to cancel its earlier agreed price discount, Energy and Coal Industry Minister Yuriy Prodan said Tuesday.

Ukraine enjoyed the $100/1,000 cubic meters discount on Russian gas since April 2010 after it had agreed to extend the stay of the Russian navy in the Crimean port of Sevastopol by 25 years through 2042.

KIEV, March 25 - Ukraine’s interim Defense Minister Ihor Tenyukh was sacked by Parliament on Tuesday over his handling of the Crimean crisis, after it emerged that fewer than a quarter of soldiers in Crimea plan to stay in the military.

KIEV, March 25 - Finance Minister Oleksandr Shlapak said he was negotiating with the International Monetary Fund for a loan package of $15 billion to $20 billion because the economy had been severely weakened by months of political turmoil and mismanagement. He forecast a 3% contraction in the economy this year.

THE HAGUE, March 25 - Russia and the West drew a tentative line under the Ukraine crisis on Tuesday after U.S. President Barack Obama and his allies agreed to hold off on more damaging economic sanctions unless Moscow goes beyond the seizure of Crimea.

KIEV, March 22 – Parliament has ratified the Visa Facilitation Agreement with the European Union.

Some 275 of the 350 MPs registered in the parliamentary sitting hall on Friday supported the ratification.

KIEV, March 25 – Ukraine survived the worst snowstorm to hit the country in more than 100 years without loss of life and with transportation infrastructure now gradually returning back to normal, Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said Monday.

KIEV, March 22 – President Viktor Yanukovych will meet with world leaders during the 2012 Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul, said Liovochkin, head of the presidential administration.

KIEV, March 23 – Petro Poroshenko, a pro-Western former foreign minister, on Friday accepted the post of economy minister amid signs President Viktor Yanukovych is trying to repair his government’s worsening reputation at the European Union.

KIEV, March 25 – Ukraine matters enormously to the EU as a leader in the region, but the country needs concrete reform actions rather than encouraging words, European Commissioner for Enlargement and Neighborhood Policy Stefan Fule said at a meeting with members of the EU-Ukraine Parliamentary Cooperation Committee in Brussels, the Delegation of the European Union to Ukraine reported.