KYIV, April 29 – Ukrainian banks issued less loans to businesses and people in the first quarter amid collapsing demand due to coronavirus pandemic and quarantine, the National Bank of Ukraine reported Wednesday.

KIEV, April 27 – Ukraine would like European companies to buy shares in its natural gas pipeline system as a way to achieve energy independence for itself and the European Union and lay the basis for "what would on the whole be a new energy policy in Europe," Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk said on Monday.

KIEV, April 28 – The Ukrainian Finance Ministry is currently preparing for the issue of Ukrainian eurobonds against U.S. guarantees worth $1 billion, and the ministry expects that the funds from their placement will arrive in the middle of May, Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko said.

KIEV, April 28 – Kiev Mayor Vitali Klitschko and Ambassador Alfonso Lenhardt, Deputy Administrator and Acting Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), meeting in Washington, announced the start of joint actions to support the battle against corruption in Kiev, the Kiev City State Administration reported.

KIEV, April 29 - Ukrainian fire fighters have contained a large forest fire that threatened to spread toward the abandoned Chernobyl nuclear power plant and radiation levels in the area are normal, Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk said on Wednesday, Reuters reported.

KIEV, April 29 – Former Ukrainian officials have taken at least $32 billion to Russia, acting Prosecutor General Oleh Makhnitsky said in an interview with Financial Times.

BRUSSELS, April 29 – Ukrainian Energy Minister Yuriy Prodan has agreed to the holding in Warsaw on May 2 of a trilateral meeting with the European Union and Russia on the gas problem, the press office of EU Energy Commissioner Gunther Oettinger reported.

BRUSSELS, April 29 - The European Union imposed asset freezes and travel bans on 15 Russians and Ukrainians, including a Russian deputy prime minister, Dmitry Kozak, over Moscow's action in Ukraine, but steered clear of any sanctions on business leaders, Reuters reported.

BRUSSELS, April 29 - NATO has seen no sign that tens of thousands of Russian troops are withdrawing from close to the Ukraine border, a NATO official said on Tuesday, despite a Russian statement that the troops had returned to their permanent positions.

KIEV, April 29 - The self-declared mayor of a separatist-held town in eastern Ukraine said on Tuesday he would discuss the release of detained military observers with the West only if the European Union dropped sanctions against rebel leaders, Reuters reported.