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.

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.

EU leaders sent a clear message to Russia to step back from the brink of war in Ukraine when they unanimously agreed to make Poland’s prime minister their chief.

Nine troops were killed in overnight fighting in the streets of a town neighbouring the rebel stronghold of Donetsk, a Ukrainian official said.

Sustained shelling in the main rebel stronghold in eastern Ukraine struck residential buildings and a hospital, killing at least four people and wounding 10 others, officials said, as government forces pressed forward in their campaign to rout the separatists.

Sustained shelling in the main rebel stronghold in eastern Ukraine has struck residential buildings and a hospital, killing at least four people and wounding 10 others.

The downing of the Malaysian jet MH17 could have a transformative impact on the crisis in the Ukraine, massively increasing pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin over his support for anti-government rebels, experts have said.

Russia’s foreign ministry said that a Ukrainian shell hit a Russian border town, killing one person and seriously injuring two others.

The leaders of Russia and Ukraine have held their first talks since Moscow annexed Crimea, discussing ways to end their four-month conflict in a brief encounter during commemorations in France of the World War Two D-Day landings.

Billionaire chocolate tycoon Petro Poroshenko has won Ukraine’s presidential election outright in the first round, according to an exit poll.

Sustained gunfire was heard throughout the night near the eastern Ukrainian city of Slovyansk, the stronghold of pro-Russia fighters, ahead of a second round of European-brokered talks today aimed at resolving the crisis.

Obama has to stop lecturing Putin — it didn’t work in the past and won’t work now, writes Nina Khrushcheva.

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.

Russia’s defence minister has announced new military exercises along the Ukrainian border just hours after Ukrainian troops killed at least two pro-Russia insurgents in eastern Ukraine.

Ukraine’s acting president Oleksandr Turchynov has called for the deployment of United Nations peacekeeping troops in the east of the country, where pro-Russian insurgents have occupied buildings in nearly 10 cities.

Pro-Russian separatists have seized a police building in yet another city in Russian-leaning eastern Ukraine, defying government warnings that it was preparing to act against the insurgents.

Dragging much of Europe into his fight with Ukraine, Russian president Vladimir Putin urged European leaders to quickly help Ukraine settle its gas debt to Russia to prevent an imminent shutdown of Russian natural gas supplies to the continent.

Vladimir Putin has told European leaders that Ukraine’s growing gas debts to Moscow can threaten supplies to Europe.

Ukraine accused Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, of orchestrating the seizure of state buildings in two eastern Ukrainian cities by pro-Russia protesters yesterday, in a further escalation of tension between Kiev and Moscow.

Two people have been killed and several wounded in a shootout in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s acting interior minister said.

Washington and the international community won’t recognise the outcome of tomorrow’s referendum in Crimea on seceding from Ukraine, US secretary of State John Kerry said after six hours of talks with Russia’s foreign minister.

Ukraine has a new government, but Western leaders should be very careful about what they wish for, argues Geoff Roberts