Ukraine has said it will not repay $3bn (€2.76bn) in bonds due to Russia.

Ukraine has reached a crucial deal with its international bondholders that will help prop up its government finances and keep the struggling country from defaulting on its debt.

The leaders of Germany and France met Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko in a hastily arranged mission to bring an end to the accelerated fighting in the east of the country.

Indiscriminate rocket fire has hit a market, schools, homes and shops in the eastern Ukrainian city of Mariupol, killing at least 30 people, authorities said.

A German official says Chancellor Angela Merkel’s website and several other German government sites have been blocked, and a pro-Russian organisation has claimed responsibility.

Ukraine’s energy minister has said a technical fault at a nuclear power plant in the south has cut power production but he insisted the incident poses no danger.

US vice president Joe Biden has criticised Russia for its role in eastern Ukraine, urging Moscow to uphold a ceasefire in the war-torn region as he visited Kiev on the anniversary of the country’s anti-government protests.

Two pro-European parties in Ukraine running on a platform to enact tough reforms have taken the lead in the Ukrainian parliamentary election.

Ukrainians overwhelming voted in several pro-Western political parties yesterday in a landmark parliamentary election, another nudge in the former Soviet nation’s drift away from Russia.

Ukrainians have overwhelming voted in several pro-Western parties in a landmark parliamentary election today, another nudge in the former Soviet nation’s drift away from Russia.

Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko says he believes the conflict with Russian-backed separatists in the east is on the wane and that peace efforts will work.

Ukraine's prime minister has urged the world not to lift sanctions against Russia until his country regains control over its entire territory, including Crimea.

Ukraine is “still in a state of war” with neighbouring Russia despite a cease-fire between Kiev’s forces and Moscow-backed rebels in the east, the country’s prime minister said shortly after a second convoy of Russian trucks rolled into Ukraine.

Russia will be the main focus of an extraordinary summit of EU leaders in Brussels today and is likely to play a role in who gets the Union’s top jobs for the coming five years.

Ukrainian prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk has announced his resignation following turmoil in the government.

Dutch forensic investigators told armed separatists guarding train cars full of bodies from the downed Malaysia Airlines jet that the train must be allowed to leave within hours.

Ukraine has accused Russia of helping separatist rebels to destroy evidence after a Malaysia Airlines plane was shot down with 298 people on board.

World leaders are demanding that pro-Russia rebels who control the eastern Ukraine crash site of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 give immediate, unfettered access to investigators to determine who shot down the plane.

Pro-Russian insurgents are likely to prevent voting tomorrow in half or more of the election districts in the embattled east, Ukrainian officials said.

Germany is pushing for a second round of diplomatic talks in Geneva in an effort to halt the violence in Ukraine.

The mayor of Ukraine’s second-largest city has been shot in the back and pro-Russian insurgents have seized more government buildings in the country as unrest continued.

The United States and other nations in the Group of Seven have agreed to “move swiftly” – as early as Monday – to impose additional economic sanctions on Russia for its actions in Ukraine.

At least a dozen armed men have seized a police station in a small town in eastern Ukraine as tensions in the country’s Russian-speaking regions intensify.

Ukraine’s prime minister has told leaders in the east of the country he is committed to allowing regions to have more powers.

Ukraine’s prime minister has told leaders in the east of the country that he is committed to allowing regions to have more powers.

Ukraine’s prime minister has told leaders in the country’s restive east that he is committed to allowing regions to have more powers.

President Vladimir Putin completed the annexation of Crimea yesterday, signing the peninsula into Russia at nearly the same time his Ukrainian counterpart sealed a deal pulling his country closer to Europe.

Polls have closed in Crimea’s contentious referendum on seceding from Ukraine and seeking annexation by Russia.

The UN Security Council will meet tomorrow to vote on a resolution on the Ukraine crisis but permanent member Russia is virtually certain to veto it.

Ukraine’s prime minister has told the UN Security Council that Russia had carried out “military aggression” in Crimea, and dramatically switched from English to Russian to ask Russia whether it wants war.

Russia is on a collision course with the EU and the US, with the referendum in Crimea on Sunday threatening to escalate the situation onto another level.

The Crimean parliament has voted that the Black Sea peninsula will declare itself an independent state if its residents agree to split off from Ukraine and join Russia in a referendum.

Ukraine is practically in a state of war with Russia, it was claimed tonight as Moscow warned Russian-leaning eastern regions have plunged into lawlessness.

US President Barack Obama will meet Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk at the White House on Wednesday.

Ukraine will not give up “a single centimetre” of its territory, the country’s prime minister said.

EU leaders pressed Russia to start discussions with Ukraine within the next few days about withdrawing from Crimea or face asset freezes and visa bans.

The new Ukrainian prime minister has said that embattled Crimea must remain part of Ukraine, but may be granted more local powers.

Russia has cranked up the pressure by ending discounts on its natural gas supplies, while the US and European Union offered quick-fix aid to the beleaguered government.

President Barack Obama has accused Russia of being “on the wrong side of history” with its military intervention in Ukraine and said he’s examining diplomatic and economic steps to isolate Moscow.

President Barack Obama today accused Russia of being “on the wrong side of history” with its military intervention in Ukraine and said he’s examining diplomatic and economic steps to isolate Moscow.

Russian forces controlling the strategic region of Crimea have demanded that the crew of two Ukrainian warships must surrender, according to Ukrainian sources.

Ukraine, warning it is “on the brink of disaster”, has put its military on high alert and appealed for international help to avoid what it fears is a possible wider invasion by Russia.

Ukraine mobilised for war yesterday after Russian president Vladimir Putin declared he had the right to invade, creating the biggest confrontation between Moscow and the West since the Cold War.

It may be premature to remind ourselves of the momentum that, almost unknowingly, gathered unstoppable force and reached a catastrophic climax right across Europe just under 100 years ago — July 28, 1914 — but as Ukraine has ordered a full military mobilisation in response to Russia’s build-up of its forces in Crimea it is unfortunately pertinent to do so.

A tense standoff was in place in the Crimea crisis tonight as Russian forces continued to surround a Ukrainian army base.

Ukraine’s new prime minister has urged Russian president Vladimir Putin to pull back his troops in the dispute between their two countries over Crimea, saying “we are on the brink of disaster”.

Dozens of armed men in military uniforms have seized an airport in Ukraine’s strategic Crimea region, it is reported.

Russia’s order for 150,000 troops to test their combat readiness near Ukraine’s border has prompted a blunt warning from the United States that any military intervention in the crisis-torn nation would be a “grave mistake”.

At least 25 people have been killed and more than 240 injured during clashes between police and protesters in the Ukrainian capital, health officials said.