BRUSSELS -- The European Union has removed four Ukrainians from a sanctions list due to lack of evidence.
The EU list, announced in March 2014, had targeted 22 Ukrainian officials suspected of embezzling state funds and illegally transferring the funds outside Ukraine. The EU has frozen their assets held in the 28-nation bloc.
The four men, whose names didn't appear in the updated list on March 6, are: Oleksiy Azarov, the son of the former Prime Minister Mykola Azarov, former presidential advisers Andriy Portnov and Ihor Kalinin, and former security chief Oleksandr Yakymenko.
The EU said another four people will remain in the list for three months during which the Ukrainian Prosecutor-General's Office is required to provide more evidence against them.
The list will be updated after 12 months.
It includes ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and Mykola Azarov as well as the former head of the Ukrainian Security Service, a former prosecutor-general, a former interior minister, and a former justice minister.