EU ambassadors approve visa liberalization for Ukraine:
By Rikard Jozwiak
BRUSSELS -- EU ambassadors have approved visa liberalization for Ukraine, a key step toward closer ties and visa-free travel to the EU for Ukrainians.
EU ministers are now set to rubber-stamp the decision on May 11, and the signing ceremony for the deal is expected to take place in Strasbourg on May 17.
EU diplomats have told RFE/RL they hope the visa-free regime will enter into force in mid-June.
Analysts say Russia's seizure of Crimea and involvement in a war against government forces in eastern Ukraine have only increased many Ukrainians' desire for closer ties with the EU.
Many in the country of 44 million have closely followed the process since December 2015, when the European Commission recommended to EU member states and the European Parliament that Ukraine be granted visa liberalization.
The decision will apply to all Ukrainian citizens who have biometric passports. They will be able to enter all EU member states apart from Ireland and the United Kingdom for up to 90 days during any 180-day period.
Visa-free EU travel began on March 28 for citizens of Georgia, another former Soviet republic that is under pressure from Russia.
Excerpt:
There are independent reports about something taking place in the early hours of Aug 7, though they suggest rather that an FSB officer died in a drunken brawl between Russian border guards and Russian FSB officers. There is nothing at all to back the claims about the second night and supposed shelling from Ukraine. The hysteria from Moscow and the Russian media were difficult to take seriously for another reason. The alleged incidents had been preceded by Russian moves to block access to independent Internet websites and coincided with Russia’s deployment in occupied Crimea of a huge amount of military technology.
The only ‘evidence’ was from videoed ‘confessions’, first from Yevhen Panov, a driver from Zaporizhya, who looked obviously beaten, then Andriy Zakhtei. Both men have since retracted any ‘confessions’ and described in detail the torture used to obtain them.
Then on August 12, a young Crimean Tatar Ridvan Suleymanov was shown on Russian TV ‘confessing’ to having been recruited by Ukraine’s military. On the video, Suleymanov asserts that he was recruited by Ukrainian military intelligence in 2015 and given the pseudonym ‘Joseph’. He was ordered to gather information, and told to find himself a job at the airport or railway station to report on the movement of military technology. Read More