KIEV, Dec. 20 – First Deputy Prosecutor General Renat Kuzmin is again trying to blacken the opposition's reputation, this time through statements about former Deputy Prime Minister Hryhoriy Nemyria, who is currently deputy chairman of the Batkivschyna Party, the party charged.

KIEV, Dec. 20 – The government illegally changed parameters of the 2013 budget by quietly increasing spending on police and other state institutions before it was signed by President Viktor Yanukovych, an opposition leader said Thursday.

MOSCOW, Dec. 20 – Ukraine has been seeking ways to cooperate with the Russia-led Customs Union trade bloc, but has not yet submitted an application for a full fledged membership, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday.

KIEV, Dec. 19 - The introduction of visa-free regime between Ukraine and the EU depends on Kiev's compliance with conditions stipulated by a relevant action plan, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said Monday.

"We have also discussed today the implementation of the plan to introduce visa-free travel, and I can assure you that it will be implemented as soon as the necessary conditions are met," he said, Interfax reported.

KIEV, Dec. 20 - Ukraine's Femen group which specializes in topless protests in public raised an SOS Tuesday over three activists who it said were seized by police in Belarus, forced to strip, threatened with violence and then abandoned naked in woodland.

KIEV, Dec. 20 – Mixed signals were sent from Moscow on Tuesday after reports suggested that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev had cancelled a meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart Viktor Yanukovych only to change his mind hours later.

KIEV, Dec. 20 – Ukraine has been insisting on including a multinational oil company, such as ExxonMobile or Royal Dutch/Shell, as a partner in a natural gas transportation joint venture with Russia, a newspaper reported Tuesday.

KIEV, Dec. 20 - The reform of labor laws, issues of labor and wage market legalization, protection of the rights of children and amendments to tax laws are to be of top priority in the government's work in 2012, according to Vice Premier and Social Policy Minister Serhiy Tyhypko.

KIEV, Dec. 17 – Parliament Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn said that the BYT-Batkivschyna faction aims not only to protect their leader Yulia Tymoshenko, "but also to block decision making in the country."

KIEV, Dec. 20 – Former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko was charged on Monday with abuse of power while in the government for allegedly misusing funds raised from selling carbon dioxide emission allowances in 2009.