Ukraine

KYIV, Jan 19 (Reuters) - Former Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko won a court ruling on Wednesday allowing him to remain at liberty while being investigated for treason in a probe he says was cooked up by allies of his successor, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

Dressed in a traditional embroidered shirt, Poroshenko appeared in court while thousands of his supporters demonstrated outside, chanting and waving flags and briefly scuffling with police before the hearing.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged western nations Wednesday to remain united in the face of what he called “relentless” Russian aggression against Ukraine and reassured Ukraine’s leader of their support.

Blinken told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during a visit to Kyiv that the U.S. and its allies were steadfast in backing his country and its democratic aspirations amid growing fears of a potentially imminent Russian invasion.

KYIV, Jan 18 (Reuters) - Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly condemned Russia massing troops near Ukraine's borders on Tuesday and said Ottawa would take a decision at the appropriate time on supplying military hardware to Ukraine.

Speaking alongside Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba at a briefing during a visit to Kyiv, Joly said any new offensive by Russia would incur serious consequences.

KYIV, Jan 17 (Reuters) - Germany's foreign minister said on Monday she hoped tensions with Russia over Ukraine could be solved by diplomacy, but she warned that Moscow would suffer if it does attack its neighbour.

Minister Annalena Baerbock was speaking in Kyiv on a tour that next takes her to Moscow after talks between Russia and Western states on the Kremlin's deployment of tens of thousands of troops along Ukraine's border ended with no breakthrough last week.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A cyberattack left a number of Ukrainian government websites temporarily unavailable Friday, officials said.

While it wasn’t immediately clear who was responsible, the disruption came amid heightened tensions with Russia and after talks between Moscow and the West failed to yield any significant progress this week.

Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Oleg Nikolenko told The Associated Press it was too soon to say who was behind it, “but there is a long record of Russian cyber assaults against Ukraine in the past.”

KIEV, January 12. /TASS/: NATO is ready to negotiate with Russia on not granting Ukraine and Georgia admission to the Western-led bloc, but will not agree to bind this agreement legally, says Ruslan Bortnik, who heads the Ukrainian Institute of Politics, commenting on the Russia-NATO Council meeting in Brussels.

KIEV, January 11. /TASS/: Ukraine risks facing the adverse consequences of strategic stability talks between Russia and the United States because a boundary line between spheres of influence will run through its territory, Director of Ukraine’s Center for Research on Civil Society Problems Vitaly Kulik said.

"The possibility of strategic stability talks between Washington and Moscow is an unpleasant sign," he told Ukraine’s Glavred news outlet, commenting on the consequences that Kiev might face following the talks.

KIEV, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and U.S. President Joe Biden held a telephone conversation late Sunday discussing regional security issues, according to Zelensky's official Twitter account.

Zelensky said he appreciated U.S. support for Ukraine, noting that the phone conversation with Biden illustrated the "special nature" of relations between Kiev and Washington.

KIEV, Dec. 30 (Xinhua) -- The Ukrainian Navy held a passing exercise (PASSEX) in the Black Sea with the French Navy, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said Thursday in a statement.

The landing ship Yuriy Olefirenko of the Ukrainian Navy, and the Aquitaine-class frigate Auvergne of the French Navy were involved in the exercise.

The exercise, which defined English as a working language, focused on improving the interoperability and coherence of the naval crews. In particular, the maneuvers included training on conducting night signal production.

KIEV, December 30. /TASS/: Ukraine sees neither any great danger on the country’s borders nor aggression from Russia, National Security and Defense Council Secretary Alexey Danilov said at a briefing on Thursday.

"We don’t see any great danger on our borders at the moment," he pointed out, adding that no large presence of foreign troops had been detected on the border.

According to Danilov, the situation on the border with Russia is not alarming. "So far, we don’t see any threat of outright aggression from Russia," he stressed.