KYIV, Dec 21 – Ukraine's state budget for 2019 provides over UAH 102 billion to the Defense Ministry, which will make it possible to purchase the latest types of weapons, ammunition and military equipment for the Armed Forces of Ukraine, President Petro Poroshenko has said.

KYIV, Dec 21 – The share of the shadow economy in Ukraine in the second quarter of 2018 fell by 1 percentage points (p.p.) compared with the previous quarter, and year-over-year the decline was 3 p.p., according to a report of the Economic Development and Trade Ministry of Ukraine on the shadow economy in the country published on Friday.

KYIV, Dec 21 - Ukraine's new IMF program mitigates near-term financing risks and will support improvements in macroeconomic and financial stability, but program compliance and retaining bond market access will be important in meeting external sovereign funding needs beyond 2019, Fitch Ratings reported.

MOSCOW, Dec 25 - Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has expanded Russia's targeted sanctions against Ukrainian individuals and legal entities, RFE/RL reported.

KYIV, Dec 21 – Most (85.9%) Ukrainians think the battle against corruption in the country is completely or mostly unsuccessful, according to the results of a poll conducted by the Foundation of Democratic Initiatives named after Ilko Kucheriv and the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS).

KIEV, Dec. 23 – Russian howitzers and rocket launchers regularly pounded Ukrainian positions across the border in the early stages of the war in eastern Ukraine, AP reported, citing an analysis of hundreds of attack sites published by the open source investigative group Bellingcat.

LONDON, Dec. 24 - Ukraine should complete reforms in order to apply for NATO membership, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has said in an interview with Norwegian television and radio corporation NRK.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 24 - The position of the United States on the events in Crimea and eastern Ukraine is one of the major successes of U.S. diplomacy in 2014, State Department deputy spokesperson Marie Harf said.

MOSCOW, Dec. 24 - Russia said on Wednesday NATO was turning Ukraine into a "frontline of confrontation" and threatened to sever remaining ties with the Atlantic military alliance if Ukraine's hopes of joining it were realized, Reuters reported.

KIEV, Dec. 24 - Ukraine will be forced to implement more power cuts if the weather gets sharply colder, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk said on Wednesday, Reuters reported.

Kiev had already temporarily cut off electricity to Crimea.