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.

KIEV, Dec. 17 – President Viktor Yushchenko has called for the Fuel and Energy Ministry and the government to stop further elaboration and coordination of a draft memorandum of mutual understanding between Russia's state atomic energy corporation Rosatom and Ukraine's Energy Ministry on developing cooperation in geological prospecting, and the production and processing of uranium ores.

KIEV, Dec. 17 – Sailors from the Ariana, a ship recently freed by Somali pirates, are expected to arrive in Ukraine by the end of the year.

"I believe that several days before New Year we will be able to bring our sailors back to Ukraine," said Mykola Malomuzh, chief of Ukraine's Foreign Intelligence Service.