In Ukraine

The Ukrainian airliner that crashed killing 176 people was likely downed in error by an Iranian missile, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Jan. 9.

Iranian investigators said on Jan. 9 the crew members of the Ukrainian jetliner that crashed the previous day never made a radio call for help and were trying to turn back to the airport when the plane went down.

Iran's civil aviation authority made the comments in a preliminary crash report a day after the crash of the Ukrainian jetliner that killed all 176 people on board.

A top Ukrainian security official on Jan. 9 set out what he said were the four main theories for why a Ukrainian airliner crashed in Iran the previous day killing 176 people, including a possible missile strike and terrorism.

Former Berkut officers Serhiy Zinchenko, Pavlo Abroskin and Serhiy Tamtura on trial at the Svyatoshynskiy district court in Kyiv in November 2017. Photo: Anastasia Vlasova/Hromadske.

Suspects still working as police officers

The Ukrainian Church is independent of the religious administration of Moscow.
In a statement after the meeting in the Moscow Patriarchate, the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church stated that it could not, from now on, mention the name of Patriarch Theodore II in his prayers and participate in common prayers.

"We are different people, free, respecting democracy. We understand that Ukrainians live there. And we respect the citizens of Ukraine ... There will be no massacre ... We are a different government. For us, the most important thing is human life. Therefore, I do not see such conclusions", Zelensky pointed out in an interview with "1 + 1" television.

Kiev is calling on Russia to end its occupation of Ukraine to achieve stability in the region, said a top official of Ukraine's Foreign Ministry.

Russian-Turkish memorandum on Syria is being implemented with all its terms, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Tuesday.

"They set me up," Tkachuk, now retired, told the local court in Kostiantynivka. "If I could go back, of course, I wouldn't have done this."

She pleaded guilty, expressed remorse and the judge sentenced her to five years in prison, suspended for 12 months. The prosecutor and the defence lawyer had already left the room.

In a sign of continued deep rifts in the Orthodox Church, a Serbian bishop had condemned the Patriarch of Constantinople, the nominal head of the Church, for mentioning the head of the disputed Orthodox Church in Ukraine in a service.