Ukraine says resuming electricity to Crimea:
Ukrainian officials say they are starting to resume electricity supplies to Crimea more than two weeks after power lines to the disputed territory were sabotaged, causing widespread blackouts.
The power cuts have severely disrupted the lives of 2 million Crimeans and exposed how dependent the peninsula remains on Ukraine a year and a half after it was annexed by Russia.
"We are in the process of resuming energy supplies," said Igor Boska, regional head of Ukrenergo, the Ukrainian electric utility.
While the utility appeared close to restoring functioning of the Kakhovskaya power substation, which supplies much of the Kherson and Mykolayiv regions. three other damaged power transmission lines remain offline.
Crimea depends on Ukraine for most of its electricity. The first phase of Moscow's planned energy bridge between the peninsula and the Russian mainland won't be completed until later this month.
After the power lines went down, pro-Ukrainian activists, including many ethnic Tartars who opposed Crimea's annexation, prevented repairs by blocking access for engineers to pylons in Kherson in southern Ukraine.
But after negotiations, Tartar leader Lenur Islamov told 112 television that the engineers have been allowed to work. (Reuters, TASS, Interfax)
Here's Brian Whitmore's Briefing on Biden's trip to Ukraine:
Meanwhile in eastern Ukraine:
A collection of stolen Dutch masterpieces dating from the 17th century have resurfaced in rebel-held eastern Ukraine 10 years after they had been stolen.
The Westfries Museum in the northwestern Dutch city of Hoorn said on December 7 that two men approached the Dutch Embassy in Kyiv in July offering to sell the 24 paintings back.
The men claimed they found the collection in a villa in eastern Ukraine and asked 5 million euros ($5.4 million) for it -- half its value when it went missing in 2005.
But an art expert, who has been hired as an intermediary, estimated the collection's current cost at maximum 500,000 euros ($545,000), noting the paintings' current poor shape.
Westfries Museum Director Ad Geerdink warned that the works were in danger of being sold on the black market after its own efforts to retrieve them failed.
WATCH: U.S. Vice President Joe Biden arrived in Kyiv for a two-day visit aimed at reaffirming Washington's support for Ukraine. After visiting a monument to protesters killed during the 2014 revolution, he held talks with President Petro Poroshenko. (AP video)
Latest on the Biden visit:
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden has announced new financial aid of $190 million to help Ukraine implement reforms.
Speaking on December 7 after talks with President Petro Poroshenko in Kyiv, Biden urged the Ukrainian leadership to continue on the path of reforms and ramp up the fight against corruption.
“Ukraine is on the cusp -- what happens in the next year is likely to determine the fate of the country for generations," he said.
Biden also reiterated that the United States will never accept Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in March 2014.
Biden earlier met with members of parliament, and civic society, and Kyiv’s Mayor Vitali Klitschko.
It is Biden’s fourth visit to Kyiv since Russia annexed Crimea and gave its backing to Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.
EU promises "very positive report" on Ukraine's visa-free ambitions
Brussels (dpa) -- The European Union is set to issue a "very positive report" on Ukraine's progress towards achieving visa-free access to the bloc, a top official said Monday, fuelling hopes in Kiev that it will be granted the long-sought advantage next week.
The offer to remove visa requirements for short-term visits to the bloc has been used as an incentive by the EU to encourage reforms in its eastern neighbours.
Moldova last year became the first of the six former Soviet states in the EU's Eastern Partnership programme to be granted visa-free access for its citizens to Europe's Schengen area for up to 90 days.
Ukraine hopes to be next in line.
"Ukraine has complied with everything [that was] promised so we can enable this visa-free regime," Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said on Monday after talks with EU officials in Brussels. "We hope our European partners will have a positive decision ... on December 15."
The European Commission, the EU's executive, is expected to issue reports on the visa liberalization progress made by Ukraine and Georgia on that day.
The bloc's commissioner for neighbourhood relations, Johannes Hahn, said he was "pretty sure that we will have a very positive report" for Ukraine.
"But the final outcome I can't and I don't want to predict," he told journalists in Brussels.
EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini warned that there are still efforts to be made by Ukraine, "notably on anti-corruption" work. But she also welcomed the "progress" made by Kiev so far.
"We know how much [visa liberalization] is important for all the Ukrainian people," she added.
The country has been holding visa liberalization talks with the EU for more than seven years.