Ukraine

Listen to this BosNewsLife News report via Vatican Radio:  By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent BosNewsLife KYIV/BUDAPEST (Vatican Radio)-- A tense calm has returned to the streets of Ukraine's capital Kyiv's following clashes between pro and anti-government demonstrators. It comes at a time when protesters are remembering those who died in more than two months of unrest.

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent BosNewsLife KYIV, UKRAINE (BosNewsLife)-- The influential Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Kyiv Patriarchate) says it has removed prayers for the government from its liturgy, after as many as 100 people died when a truce broke down between security forces and anti-government protesters.Thursday's clashes came while European Union ministers attempted to talk with the embattled president Viktor Yanukovich.

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent BosNewsLife KIEV/AMSTERDAM (BosNewsLife)-- The Netherlands has commemorated the nearly 300 people who died on board a Malaysia Airlines plane which was shot down over eastern Ukraine earlier this year. Flags flew at half-mast at government buildings as the nation united to remember one of the worst disasters in modern Dutch history.

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent BosNewsLife KYIV, UKRAINE (BosNewsLife)-- Officials say heavy fighting between government forces and pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine has forced hundreds of Ukrainian army soldiers to cross into Russia. Kiev says it will pressure Moscow to get them back.

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent BosNewsLife KYIV, UKRAINE (BosNewsLife)-- Metropolitan Volodymyr, who led Ukraine's Moscow-linked Orthodox Church for more than two, often turbulent, decades has died, leaving behind members struggling to overcome hardship in the war-torn east. News of his passing prompted Russian President Vladimir Putin to express his condolences to the church.

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent KYIV, UKRAINE (BosNewsLife)-- An ethnic Polish priest who was abducted by armed pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine has been freed, but his release did little to ease tensions as Ukrainian government forces advanced to the rebel-held stronghold of Donetsk.

Listen to this BosNewsLife News report via Vatican Radio:  By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent BosNewsLife KYIV, UKRAINE (BosNewsLife)-- As many as half a million Ukrainians have participated in a pro-European Union rally in the capital Kyiv, where many toppled the statue of late Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin and called for the president to step down. Sunday's rally was the biggest demonstration since the pro-freedom Orange Revolution in 2004.

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent BosNewsLife KIEV, UKRAINE (BosNewsLife)-- U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden has arrived in Ukraine, where he was to announce an increase in American nonlethal aid for the nation’s fight against pro-Russian separatists amid a rising death toll, though talks about more serious weapons were not excluded. His arrival came after the United Nations said nearly 1,000 people have been killed in Ukraine since a ceasefire was agreed between the fighting parties in September.

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent BosNewsLife BUDAPEST/KIEV (BosNewsLife)-- Devoted Russian and Ukrainian Christians were among those commemorating the 25th anniversary of the world’s worst nuclear disaster Tuesday, April 26, amid new warnings that  the impact of the explosion at Ukraine's Chernobyl plant is more serious than previously thought.

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent BosNewsLife KYIV, UKRAINE (BosNewsLife)-- Ukraine's President Viktor Yanukovich on Thursday, february 21, called for a national unity government and early presidential elections, after violence between anti-government protesters and police killed as many as 100 people.