A businessman close to Kharkiv's mayor shot dead:
A businessman and ally of the mayor of northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv has been shot dead.
Police say Yuriy Dyment was killed while visiting his mother's grave at a city cemetery on February 26.
Authorities called it "premeditated murder" and said an investigation had been launched.
The 52-year-old Dyment was a business partner of Kharkiv Mayor Hennadiy Kernes.
Kernes himself barely survived a shooting attack in April 2014, a time of growing instability in eastern Ukraine and a month after Moscow annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine.
Kernes initially gave his backing to the pro-Russia separatists in the east before later switching his loyalty to the Ukrainian government. (UNIAN, Kh.depo.ua)
EU may delay visa-free travel for Ukraine, our correspondent reports:
BRUSSELS -- The European Commission appears ready to offer visa-free travel to Georgia, but could postpone a similar offer to Ukraine.
In December, the European Commission said both countries had fulfilled the criteria to qualify for visa-free travel through the passport-free Schengen zone.
The commission said it would send a proposal to that effect to EU member states and the European Parliament in the beginning of 2016.
However, unnamed EU officials tell RFE/RL that Brussels is not convinced Ukraine has done enough to fight corruption, and therefore should not be grouped together with Georgia in the proposal.
Officials also fear including Ukraine could negatively impact a referendum in April in the Netherlands on the EU-Ukrainian Association Agreement.
Any proposal to allow Georgia or Ukraine to enjoy visa-free travel within the Schengen zone will need to be approved by the European Parliament and the 28 EU member states. (Rikard Jozwiak)
Nationalists resume blocking Russian trucks:
Ukraine's nationalist Svoboda party has announced it will again block Russian trucks from transiting through Ukraine.
Writing on Facebook, party leader Oleh Tyahnybok said members of Svoboda had resumed the blockade on February 26.
Ukrainian activists began blocking Russian trucks at Ukrainian border points earlier this month.
Moscow responded on February 14 by suspending Ukrainian truck transit through Russia.
But two days later on February 16 officials from Moscow and Kyiv agreed to allow Ukrainian trucks stuck in Russia or at the border to return to Ukraine.
On February 19 Russian trucks stuck in Ukraine's western Zakarpattya region began the journey out of Ukraine.
In his Facebook post, Tyahnybok criticized the Ukrainian authorities for the deal with Moscow, calling them "traitors" and saying that "national interests are higher than business interests." (UNIAN, Tsn.ua)