Ukraine's president has been invited to speak before Congress:
U.S. House Speaker John Boehner (Republican-Ohio) has invited Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to address a joint session of Congress on September 18.
The address is generally viewed as the highest honor that the U.S. Congress can give to a foreign leader.
Boehner said in a statement, "Having President Poroshenko address Congress is another signal of our steadfast commitment to the aspirations of his people."
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Robert Menendez (Democrat-New Jersey) and Ranking Member Bob Corker (Republican-Tennessee) had sent a letter to Boehner asking him to invite Poroshenko.
The Ukrainian president is scheduled to visit the White House the same day.
Former Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko addressed Congress in a joint meeting in 2005.
Infographic on the Ukrainian defense budget and military spending, courtesy of the Ukraine Crisis Center:
With a picture:
EU delays new Russia sections:
Diplomats say European Union envoys have failed to reach a decision on whether to implement new sanctions against Russia over its involvement in the conflict in Ukraine.
The new measures were agreed by EU leaders late on September 5 on the sidelines of a NATO summit in Wales.
The diplomats said that Germany was pushing to have the sanctions implemented, but several other EU countries wanted to hold off on September 10 because a cease-fire in Ukraine was holding.
According to the diplomats, new talks will take place on September 11.
EU diplomats said that countries with close ties to Russia such as Italy, Austria, and Finland are reluctant to implement the new sanctions.
EU diplomats said, however, that the general idea was still for the sanctions to be implemented through publication in the official journal of the European Union on September 12. (Reuters, dpa, and AP)