Leonid Kuchma

"The agreement on friendship, cooperation and partnership between Ukraine and Russia will be abolished on April 1, 2019," TASS is reporting, citing the proposal.

The agency said 277 deputies voted to support the decision that needed 226 votes to pass.

Bulgaria's head of state Rosen Plevneliev received on Saturday the "Person of the Year 2015" award during his visit to Ukraine.

Plevneliev was awarded due to his contribution to Ukraine for his contribution to the defense of the country's integrity, sovereignty and European values, according to his press office.

The Working Group on Security of the Trilateral Contact Group, which involves representatives of Ukraine, Russia and the OSCE, reached an agreement on Tuesday on the withdrawal of tanks and other weapons from the frontline in eastern Ukraine.

The latest agreement supplements the Minsk ceasefire accords, which were signed in February.

The Ukranian nationalist Right sector movement has rejected the agreements reached at the Minsk summit on Thursday.

Movement's leader Dmytro Yarosh announced Friday that the organization will make every attempt to stop the implementation of the peace action plan on his social media profile, TASS information agency reported.

Ukraine slips deeper into war as hostilities continue

DONETSK, BELGRADE -- The city of Donetsk has been under almost constant fire after the breakdown in the Minsk negotiations, while the situation near Debaltsevo remains critical.

KIEV - Social Democratic Party of Serbia (SDS) leader Boris Tadic has met with Ukrainian officials in Kiev to discuss possible solutions to the Ukrainian crisis, noting that that the solutions can only be found through an agreement between Russia and the West that takes the interests of both sides into account.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has extended the truce offered to pro-Russian rebels, which was to end Friday, until the end of June.

Administrations at the self-proclaimed "Donetsk People's Republic" and "Luhansk People's Republic" have generally agreed to hold on to the ceasefire, despite internal divisions, RIA Novosti quotes their officials as saying.

Russia wants to start a "third world war", Ukraine's Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk suggested during a cabinet meeting on Friday.

During the event that was broadcast live on Ukrainian television, Yatsenyuk spoke of a military and political "occupation" to which his country was subjected by Russia.

Josh Cohen, a former U.S. State Department official, involved in managing economic reform projects in the former Soviet Union, works for a satellite technology company in the Washington area.

This article is from The Moscow Times