KIEV, March 21 - Ukraine’s law enforcement agents on Friday raided offices of the national energy company Naftogaz Ukrayiny and detained the head of the company as part of a massive corruption investigation, an official said.

KIEV, March 23 - Parts of Crimea were hit by power outages late on Sunday and the regional power company blamed them on technical problems in a power line from the Ukrainian mainland to the Black Sea peninsula, which has been wrestled away from Kiev by Moscow.

Local residents said there was no electricity in several cities in Crimea including in some districts of the provincial capital of Simferopol, though the city center was not affected, Reuters reported.

BRUSSELS, March 21 - The European Union and Ukraine signed the core elements of a political association agreement on Friday, committing to the same deal former president Viktor Yanukovych rejected last November, a move which led to his overthrow.

BRUSSELS, March 23 - NATO's top military commander said on Sunday Russia had built up a "very sizeable" force on its border with Ukraine and Moscow may have a region in another ex-Soviet republic, Moldova, in its sights after annexing Crimea, Reuters reported.

KIEV, March 22 - Germany's foreign minister pledged to help the new Ukrainian government on Saturday and heard an appeal from the prime minister in Kiev that it will need energy from the European Union to secure it against Russia cutting supplies, Reuters reported.

KIEV, March 23 - Prime Minister Mykola Azarov on Wednesday attacked importers and retailers of gasoline and diesel fuel for charging significant mark-ups that lead to higher gasoline prices at the pump.

KIEV, March 23 – Ukraine’s sensitive pension reform proposal, which increases retirement age, may be delayed by a month or two, postponing a $1.55 billion installment from the International Monetary Fund, a senior official said Wednesday.

KIEV, March 23 – Ukrainian opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko left for Brussels on Wednesday to ask European leaders for “preventive measures” to stop President Viktor Yanukovych and his government from turning democracy into authoritarian rule.

MOSCOW, March 22 - Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin has called for strengthening the social and economic relations between Moscow and Kiev.

"In order to catch up with what has been lost over the previous years due to various political circumstances," Sobyanin said at a meeting with Kiev City State Administration Head Oleksandr Popov in Moscow Mayor's Office on Monday evening.

MOSCOW, March 22 - The board of directors at Russian gas giant OJSC Gazprom has taken under advisement reports about the state of Russian-Ukrainian relations in the gas industry and the prospects for cooperation with Russia's neighbor, a company press release says.