NEW YORK, June 22 – Head of Odessa Regional Administration Mikheil Saakashvili has pointed at out the good potential position of Odessa City as a regional transport, logistic, tourist and IT hub in the Black Sea region, and said he plans to realize this potential.

NEW YORK, June 22 – The Ukrainian economy will start recovering as of the second half of the current year, according to National Bank of Ukraine Governor Valeriya Gontareva.

NEW YORK, June 22 – The Finance Ministry is still against the idea of restructuring government domestic loan bonds, as most of the securities are in bank portfolios, mainly state-run banks, Finance Minister Natalie Yaresko said.

LONDON, June 22 - A committee of Ukraine's bondholders said on Monday that a debt restructuring plan proposed by Kiev was based on IMF estimates that were not yet publicly available, adding it hoped to meet with the Fund and Ukraine's government soon, Reuters reported.

NEW YORK, June 19 – Ukraine is holding talks with creditors to negotiate the possibility of issuing a value recovery instrument as part of its debt restructuring if the Ukrainian economy recovers faster than predicted, according to Finance Minister Natalie Yaresko.

KIEV, June 22 - More than one third of Ukrainians (37.4%) would have voted for Ukraine's membership in NATO in a referendum were it to have been held in late May and about the same share (35.6%) would have opposed this prospect, according to a poll conduced by the Kiev International Sociology Institute.

VILNIUS, June 22 – Lithuanian Energy Minister Rokas Masiulis has said that Belarus has refused to discuss gas transit to Ukraine, possibly due to political reasons.

The minister expressed his hope that it will be possible to arrange the issue with Minsk and that gas from the Klaipeda LNG terminal will eventually arrive in Ukraine.

KIEV, June 19 - President Petro Poroshenko said he intends to personally sign the economic part of the association agreement with the European Union in Brussels on June 27.

KIEV, June 20 - Around 4,500 members of illegal armed groups are active in the southeastern regions of Ukraine, said Valentyn Nalyvaichenko head of the Ukrainian Security Service.

KIEV, June 20 – The parliamentary coalition after a discussion with the prime minister and speaker gave 240 votes with the required number of vote at least 226 for the inclusion of the cabinet's draft law on the special emergency period in the fuel and energy complex (No. 4117A) to the agenda, although the further consideration of the document was postponed.