KIEV, Aug. 18 – Ukraine's Culture Ministry says that experts are now engaged in technical assessment of the cities that have qualified for hosting the Eurovision 2017 song contest and the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which founded the contest, doesn't mind holding the event in any of the shortlisted cities.

KIEV, Aug. 17 – The Ukrainian Armed Forces haven't deterred external aggression and aren't ready for a full scale war with Russia, said Valentyn Badrak, director of the Center for Army Conversion and Disarmaments Studies.

In his article "Full Astern or Alchemy of Military Reform," published in the Dzerkalo Tyzhnia weekly, Badrak said that Ukraine's problem is that during a year and a half of the war its generals have been preparing for an older form of warfare.

KIEV, Aug. 17 – Illegal armed formations are intentionally escalating the situation in the “Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO) zone“ before Ukraine's Independence Day, said Major-General Borys Kremenetsky, leader of the Ukrainian envoys working in the Joint Center for Control and Coordination of the Ceasefire (JCCC).

KIEV, Aug. 17 - If Ukraine held a referendum regarding NATO membership in July 2015, more than half of Ukrainians casting their ballots would have voted to join the alliance, as is evident from a sociological survey of 2,011 respondents conducted by the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives foundation and the Razumkov Center sociological service on July 22-27.

KIEV, April 17 - The European Union and the United Nations on Monday expressed alarm over a spike in violence in east Ukraine that claimed 10 lives as Russia warned Kiev could be preparing a fresh offensive.

YALTA, Aug. 17 – Russian President Vladimir Putin has called Russians and Ukrainians a single people and expressed confidence that Ukraine will cope with its problems and get rid of "external management."

"In general I think that Russians and Ukrainians are a single people," he said at a meeting with representatives of ethnic public associations of Crimea.

KIEV, Aug. 18 – There is no alternative to incumbent Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk now Yuriy Lutsenko leader of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc faction in Ukraine's Parliament, said.

KIEV, Aug. 18 - Ukraine's pro-Western leadership and Russia traded blame on Tuesday for a sharp escalation in violence that threatened to see all-out warfare return to the former Soviet nation's separatist east, AFP reported.

KIEV. Aug 17 – From mid-April 2014 to July 27, 2015, fighting between the Armed Forces of Ukraine and Russian backed armed groups in eastern Ukraine has claimed the lives of 6,832 people (military personnel and civilians), and 17,087 have been injured.

KIEV, Aug. 18 - Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin has urged the European Union and NATO to provide Kiev with military assistance in fighting illegal armed formations in the country's east, Deutsche Welle reports.