Russia expects Ukraine to repay $3 bln Eurobond on time - Finance Ministry
MOSCOW, March 23 (Reuters) - Russia expects Ukraine to repay a $3 billion Eurobond in full and on time, Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak said on Monday.
In late 2013 Russia acquired $3 billion in Ukrainian Eurobonds that fall due this December.
Storchak also said that Moscow would not exercise a covenant of the Eurobond that stipulates that Russia has the right to ask for early repayment if Ukraine's overall debt exceeds 60 percent of nominal gross domestic product.
Storchak said Russia does not want to make Kiev's "life more difficult".
By RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service
ODESA, Ukraine -- Police in Odesa say a homemade bomb exploded near an apartment block in the Ukrainian Black Sea port city late on March 22.
Authorities were treating the explosion, the latest in a series of bomb blasts in Odesa and the eastern city of Kharkiv in recent months, as a terrorist act.
Nobody was hurt.
Police said the blast damaged the office of Padaigma 12, an organization that aids handicapped people and in recent months has been helping soldiers wounded in the conflict with Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.
Other offices on the building's ground floor were also damaged.
Ukrainian authorities blame the blasts in Odesa and Kharkiv, many of which have apparently targeted organizations that have ties to soldiers fighting in the east, on Russia and the rebels who hold parts of the eastern provinces on Donetsk and Luhansk.
Both cities are under government control but are seen as prizes coveted by the Russian-backed rebels.
Here is today's map of the security situation in eastern Ukraine, according to the National Security and Defense Council (CLICK TO ENLARGE):
Ukraine Says Rebels Moving Tanks Up, Attacks Persist
By RFE/RL
Ukrainian authorities are accusing Russian-backed separatists of moving tanks, weapons, and fighters closer to the line of contact with government forces in the east of the country.
In a statement issued on March 23, Interior Ministry adviser Zoryan Shkiryak said that 10 to 12 tanks had arrived overnight in Horlivka, a rebel-held city close to the front line.
Shkiryak said that "the enemy continues to concentrate its forces in occupied areas of Donetsk and Luhansk," a reference to two provinces held in part by the separatists.
The Ukranian military, meanwhile, said that six government soldiers were wounded in the previous 24 hours despite a cease-fire deal signed in Minsk last month.
More than 6,000 people have been killed in the conflict in eastern Ukraine since April 2014.
Fighting has lessened since the cease-fire took effect on February 15, but fighting persists and the prospects for a resolution of the conflict are clouded by disputes over other aspects of the peace deal.
With reporting by Unian
Ukraine to stop buying Russian gas from April 1 -energy minister
KIEV, March 23 (Reuters) - Ukraine plans to stop buying Russian gas from April 1, Ukrainian Energy Minister Volodymyr Demchyshyn said in a briefing on Monday.
"At the moment we don't need to buy Russian gas. We will simply stop buying it," Demchyshyn said.
On Saturday, he said that Ukraine was confident Russia would have to lower the price it charges Kiev for gas as increased imports from the European Union have greatly reduced Ukraine's reliance on supplies from Gazprom.
Russia and Ukraine are discussing a new pricing arrangement once the current package expires at the end of March.
Yanukovych's Former Party Confirms Son's Death
By RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service
The Ukrainian political party formerly headed by Viktor Yanukovych has confirmed the death of the ousted ex-president's younger son.
The Party of Regions said in a statement on March 23 that the life of Yanukovych's son, also named Viktor, was "tragically cut short on March 20."
"Death obliges us to forget about politics," the statement said.
It did not say how Yanukovych, 33, died.
News reports and Ukrainian lawmakers said on March 22 that the minivan he was driving fell though ice in Russia's Lake Baikal.
Anton Herashchenko, a lawmaker and aide to Ukraine's interior minister, said on Facebook that the vehicle sank in the Siberian lake after falling onto the driver's side.
Herashchenko said all five passengers survived and "four of them didn't even get their feet wet."
Yanukovych, a former Party of Regions lawmaker, was reportedly going by the name of Viktor Davydov.
The senior Yanukovych and most of his family have lived in Russia since he was chased from office in February 2014 after months of protests over his decision to reject a deal tightening ties with the EU and turn toward Moscow.