KYIV, Aug. 17 - President Petro Poroshenko has ordered an urgent investigation into a contested report that a factory in Ukraine may have supplied powerful missile engines to North Korea in breach of international sanctions, The Irish Times reported Thursday.

KIEV, Aug. 17 – Ukraine's State Service of Special Communications and Information Protection claims it is impossible to carry out examination to certify the comprehensive information protection system of the public register of declarations of persons authorized to fulfill public or local government functions. The authority backs the idea of inspecting the situation around the launch of declaration by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and Prosecutor General's Office (PGO).

WASHINGTON, Aug. 17 - Donald Trump's campaign chairman helped a pro-Russian governing party in Ukraine secretly route at least $2.2 million in payments to two prominent Washington lobbying firms in 2012, and did so in a way that effectively obscured the foreign political party's efforts to influence U.S. policy, The Associated Press reported.

WASHINGTON, Aug. 17 - The Pentagon has identified eight staging areas in Russia where large numbers of military forces appear to be preparing for incursions into Ukraine, according to U.S. defense officials, the Washington Free Beacon reported.

KIEV, Aug. 14 - Ukraine and its creditors on Friday failed to reach any progress in direct debt restructuring negotiations that would prevent the country from going into default.

KIEV, Aug. 13 – Ukraine intends to speed up repairs on its thermal power plants and to increase the capacity of electricity supplies to Poland by 400 MW, Energy and Coal Industry Minister Volodymyr Demchyshyn said.

KIEV, Aug. 13 – Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius during their meeting discussed the escalation of hostilities in Donbas and prospects for bilateral cooperation.

KIEV, Aug. 14 – Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk and his Moldovan counterpart Valeriu Strelet discussed bilateral cooperation issues during their telephone conversation on Friday.

BRUSSELS, Aug. 15 – The European Union is increasingly concerned at the worsening crisis in eastern Ukraine and its humanitarian impact on the civilian population.

KIEV, Aug. 15 – The approval of the law to reform Ukraine's gas transportation system is paving the way for official talks to begin with companies from the EU and the U.S. that are interested in working with the system, Ukraine's national oil and gas company Naftogaz Ukrayiny said in a commentary.