EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fuele says the European Union is working toward abolishing visa requirements for Ukrainian citizens completely. In an interview with RFE/RL's Andrei Shary and Irina Lagunina on July 7 in Prague, Fuele said Russia's annexation of Crimea will have no effect on visa-free travel for Ukrainians and cited Moldova as an example of a successful visa liberalization process. (RFE/RL's Russian Service)
Ukraine's military says the battle at Luhansk's airport has ended, with casualties among foreign fighters:
Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk says Ukraine needs a "Marshall Plan":
Is an assault on Donetsk coming?
Ukrainian Prosecutor-General Vitaliy Yarema says at least 21 members of the Ukrainian special forces participated in the deadly shooting of unarmed Euromaidan protesters in Kyiv between February 18-20.
He also said that his office had already identified at least three of the special forces involved in the shooting of peaceful protesters. He said the issue of identification was complicated by the fact that some of the troops were wearing masks, and that many of the weapons involved had since disappeared.
Approximately 75 people were killed on February 18-20, most of them unarmed protesters.
Yarema also said his office intends to restore investigation into several unlawfully dropped cases, including the 2000 murder of investigative journalist Heorhiy Gongadze.
Parubiy: If we don't stop Putin now, then tomorrow his 'Girkins' will appear in Kazakhstan, Belarus, and the Baltic states.
Today marks Viktor Yanukovych's 64th birthday. (Also Donald Rumsfeld's 82nd, but we digress.) The greetings are flowing in:
For Viktor Fyodorovich on his birthday, sincere wishes for long years in a high-security prison.
Meanwhile, the lawyer for Myroslava Gongadze says that she is withdrawing her appeal in the case of Oleksiy Pukach, the highest-ranking figure to be jailed over the murder of Gongadze's journalist husband, Heorhiy Gongadze, in 2000.
Pukach, the former head of external surveillance at the Ukrainian Interior Ministry, was arrested in 2009 and sentenced to life in prison.
Lawyer Valentina Telichenko had initially filed an appeal in order to force investigators to examine Pukach's claims that the murder was ordered by then-President Leonid Kuchma and his then cheif of staff, Volodymyr Lytvyn. But Telichenko now says she is withdrawing the appeal because, if approved, it could clear the way for Pukach's release from custody.