KIEV, Oct. 20 – Parliament has adopted the first reading of the draft state budget for 2012.

The budget, which was registered in Parliament on Sept. 15, provides for revenues of UAH 337.557 billion and expenditures of UAH 361.586 billion, including UAH 291.444 billion in revenues into the General Fund of the budget, UAH 46.117 billion in revenues into its Special Fund, UAH 314.881 billion in expenditures from its General Fund, and UAH 46.705 billion in expenditures from its Special Fund.

KIEV, Oct. 20 – President Viktor Yanukovych said that Ukraine still has time to decide on the possible entry into the Customs Union of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan, but the negotiations with the EU are more important at the current stage.

"We have time, nobody is hurrying us," he said in an interview for the Evenings with Vitaliy Korotych TV program aired on the First National TV Channel on Wednesday night.

KIEV, Oct. 20 – Ukraine’s free trade deal with Russia and other CIS countries will not be a problem for signing a free trade agreement with the European Union later this year, Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said Thursday.

KIEV, Oct. 20 - Seven months after election of Viktor Yanyukovych to the presidency, Ukraine plunged dramatically in the international press freedom ranking, underscoring a serious deterioration of freedom of speech.

BRUSSELS, Oct. 18 – The European Commission is considering various options for holding trilateral talks between the European Union, Ukraine and Russia to discuss energy issues, but there are no certain plans yet, Marlene Holzner, a representative of the European Commission and spokesperson for EU Energy Commissioner, Guenther Oettinger, said on Monday in Brussels.

KIEV, Oct. 20 – President Viktor Yushchenko said he hopes that Ukraine will receive the next tranche of a loan from the International Monetary Fund.

"I hope that common sense, including [that of] the current [IMF] mission, will win, and high-quality economic assistance in holding reforms will be provided," he said at the ninth plenary meeting of the consultative council on foreign investment in Kiev on Tuesday.

KIEV, Oct. 20 – A Ukrainian-Russian conflict over the Crimean peninsula is impossible, Ukrainian Parliament Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn said in London at a meeting with the members of the Foreign Affairs Committee chaired by MP Mike Gapes.

KIEV, Oct. 20 – The Constitutional Court ruled on Tuesday that five controversial clauses of the recently-approved legislation governing the next presidential election must be amended to avoid clashes with the constitution.

KIEV, Oct. 20 – President Viktor Yushchenko warned Tuesday that Ukraine’s budget deficit has reached a “critical” level and now poses a threat to social and political stability in the country.

MINSK, Oct. 19 – Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko says that the development of Ukrainian-Belarusian relations is not aimed against anyone and that Kiev and Minsk share the same view on many issues.