KIEV, Feb. 21 – Dzerzhynsky district court in the town of Kryvy Rih on Monday sentenced former Deputy Head of the State Committee of Ukraine for the State Material Reserve Mykola Sinkovsky to 10 years in prison, with the confiscation of his property.

KIEV, Feb. 22 – AFK Sistema and Switzerland's Leica Geosystems are to cooperate in the creation and exploitation of global positioning systems (GPS) and designing new space vehicle docking systems.

KIEV, Feb. 22 – More and more car owners are opting to buy imported gasoline, despite its relative high cost, according to the Dzerkalo Tyzhnia (Mirror Weekly) newspaper.

KIEV, Feb. 23 – The forthcoming global switch to a new system of Internet address assignment, the so-called IPv6 (Internet protocol version 6) threatens to cause Ukrainian Internet providers serious problems, said Serhiy Polischuk, director of the Ukrainian Traffic Exchange Network UA-IX.

KIEV, Feb. 19 – Fitch Ratings has downgraded the individual ratings of five foreign-owned Ukrainian banks: UkrSibbank, Ukrsotsbank and ProCredit Ukraine to 'D/E' from 'D' and Pravex Bank and VTB Ukraine to 'E' from 'D/E'.

KIEV, Feb. 20 – Ukrtelecom reported a UAH 1.526 billion net loss for 2008, while in 2007 the company saw UAH 267.2 million in net profit.

The net income of Ukrtelecom from sales goods, works and services last year dropped by 2.4%, to UAH 6.646 million, and its gross profits fell by 40.6%, to UAH 948.7 million.

KIEV, Feb. 20 – Donbas Fuel-Energy Company (DTEK) has bought two Ostroj-70/125 mining equipment complexes made by Czech company Ostroj worth EUR 20 million for the Pavlohradska and Ternivska mines, which are part of OJSC Pavlohradvuhillia.

KIEV, Feb. 23 – Ukrainian metals companies are working at 64% capacity, while in first 10 days of November – at the peak of the metals production fall – the facilities were working at 32% capacity, according to Industry Minister Volodymyr Novitsky.

KIEV, Feb. 23 – The provisional administration at Kiev-based Nadra Bank expects to receive UAH 1.2 billion of overdue debts within one year, the bank reported.

KIEV, Feb. 23 - Societe Generale, a French banking group, has been expanding on the market of leasing services in Ukraine after acquiring a small local company and setting up a subsidiary, Interfax-Ukraine reported.