US actor George Clooney and Lebanese-born human rights lawyer Amal Alamuddin formalised their marriage in a civil ceremony in Venice yesterday, capping star-studded weekend nuptials.

Women of the world — it’s over. George Clooney is off the market.

Ukraine launched airstrikes and a paratrooper assault against pro-Russian rebels who seized an airport, as its newly elected leader rejected any talks with "terrorists" and said a robust military campaign in the east should be able to put down a separatist revolt in "a matter of hours".

Moscow is ready for a direct dialogue with Ukraine’s new president and does not need any Western mediation, Russia’s foreign minister has said.

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

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

Vladimir Putin says Russia will recognise the outcome of Ukraine’s presidential vote.

Ukrainian ex-world boxing champion Vitali Klitschko has announced he will not run for president and will instead throw his support behind billionaire businessman Petro Poroshenko.

Vladimir Putin has called US president Barack Obama to discuss a diplomatic solution to the Ukrainian crisis.

Yulia Tymoshenko, the former prime minister of Ukraine who was released from jail last month after her arch-foe Viktor Yanukovych fled from power, has confirmed she will again run for president in an election on May 25.

Ukraine’s parliament sacked its besieged defence minister yesterday after his forces began a humiliating withdrawal from Crimea without firing a shot against Russian forces who claimed the Black Sea peninsula.

Ukraine’s former prime minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, has urged Western powers to unite on a hard line against Russian president Vladimir Putin in the Crimea crisis.

Three people arrested outside the European People's Party congress at the National Convention Centre in Dublin yesterday evening are due in court this morning.

The tense political and military stand-off in Ukraine dominated a meeting of Europe’s centre-right parties in Dublin.

Three men were arrested during an anti-austerity protest outside the European People’s Party congress in Dublin last night after a fight broke out between two groups of protesters.

By Ann Cahill, Europe Correspondent

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

Ukraine issued an arrest warrant yesterday for its ousted pro-Russian president over “mass murder” and appealed for $35bn (€25bn) in Western aid as Moscow denounced Kiev’s new reformist interim government as “Kalashnikov-toting people in black masks.”

With an ally claiming presidential powers and the whereabouts and legitimacy of the nominal president unclear, newly freed opposition icon Yulia Tymoshenko may feel her chance to take Ukraine’s leadership has come.

Ukraine was plunged into new uncertainty after a deadly political standoff — as a top opposition figure assumed presidential powers.

Yulia Tymoshenko, Ukraine’s ex-premier freed as the tide turned against her nemesis, president Viktor Yanukovych, is a steely and telegenic figure hailed by the opposition, but also a polarising one dogged by suspicions of personal enrichment and opportunism.

The whereabouts of Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych were unclear today, a day after he left the capital and his arch foe Yulia Tymoshenko was freed from prison and returned to Kiev to address a massive, adoring crowd.

Hours after her release from prison, former Ukrainian Prime Minister and opposition figurehead Yulia Tymoshenko appeared before an ecstatic throng at the protester encampment in Ukraine’s capital today.

Former Ukrainian prime minister and opposition icon Yulia Tymoshenko has been released from prison, her spokeswoman has confirmed.

Protesters in the Ukrainian capital claimed full control of the city today following the signing of a Western-brokered peace deal aimed at ending the nation’s three-month political crisis.

Ukraine’s opposition leaders signed an EU-mediated peace pact with Viktor Yanukovich, the president, last night, winning a raft of concessions in a delicate deal to end violence that killed at least 77 people and turned the capital into a battle zone.

Ukraine's opposition leaders have signed a deal with the president and European and Russian mediators for early elections and a new government in hopes of ending a deadly political crisis.

Beleaguered Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych says he has agreed to scrap harsh anti-protest legislation that sparked violent clashes.

Top Western diplomats headed to Kiev today to try to defuse a stand-off between Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych’s government and thousands of demonstrators, following a night in which police in riot gear dismantled protesters’ encampments outside government buildings.

Phones in-flight

Thousands of protesters poured into Kiev’s Independence Square last night, the centre of Ukraine’s pro-West Orange Revolution, to demand that the government reverse course and sign a landmark agreement with the European Union.

Ukraine’s parliament has delayed a key vote on the release of jailed former premier Yulia Tymoshenko, a move that threatens to derail the ex-Soviet republic’s push toward the European Union and shift it back into Russia’s orbit.

Ukraine’s president signalled that his main rival, the jailed former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, could be released from prison and sent to Germany to get treated for her back problem.

Ukraine's jailing of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko was a politically motivated violation of her rights, the European Court of Human Rights has ruled.

Ukraine’s president has pardoned a former interior minister and a close ally of imprisoned former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

Ukrainian authorities have formally notified jailed former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko that she is a suspect in the murder of a businessman and politician in 1996.

Ukraine’s parliamentary election has been branded unfair by international observers who said the result reversed earlier democratic gains the country made.

Ukraine's parliamentary election has been branded unfair by international observers who said the result reversed earlier democratic gains the country made.

Ukraine President Viktor Yanukovych's party claimed victory in an election vote tainted by the jailing of the country's top opposition leader.

Ukraine’s jailed former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko is urging her country to defeat President Viktor Yanukovych’s party in next month’s parliamentary election.

Ukraine’s highest court has upheld the guilty verdict against the country’s ex-prime minister who is in jail on abuse of office charges.

Activists have clashed with riot police in the the Ukrainian capital Kiev over a controversial law that upgrades the status of the Russian language and which critics say would undermine the Ukrainian tongue.

Former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s appeal hearing against her seven-year jail sentence on abuse of office charges has been postponed yet again.

Ukraine’s jailed former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko has gone on trial charged with evading millions in taxes 15 years ago, despite strong Western protests against the prosecution.