Ukraine

Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko's conviction on money-laundering and conspiracy charges was upheld by a federal appeals court Friday, a judgment that will keep the long-incarcerated politician in U.S. prisons for at least several more years. Lazarenko, 56, was head of the Ukrainian government from May 1996 to June 1997, during which, prosecutors said, he siphoned at least $200 million from the nation's coffers through elaborate schemes of extortion, cronyism and kickbacks.

NATO is unlikely to immediately put Ukraine and Georgia on a course toward membership, the group's spokesman said Wednesday night, dealing a setback to President Bush, who has pushed hard to expand the 26-nation alliance to include the two countries on Russia's southern flank that had been part of the Soviet Union.

A U.S. destroyer and a Russian warship headed Saturday for a possible confrontation with pirates who hijacked a cargo ship carrying battle tanks, machine guns and a crew of 21. Though pursued by ships from two of the world's biggest naval powers, the pirates showed no sign of surrendering the Ukrainian vessel Faina, which they boarded Thursday off the Somali coast as it headed to Kenya.

Skimming the Black Sea aboard a military motorboat, Russian navy spokesman Igor Dygalo turned to an entourage of television cameras. "The dirty ones, those are the Ukrainian ships," he said with a light smirk. "The clean ones are Russian." Against a backdrop of simmering tensions, Dygalo led journalists on an unusual wide-ranging visit to Russia's Black Sea Fleet this month, complete with unprecedented access to the flagship Moskva, a guided missile cruiser.

Pirates who seized a weapons-laden Ukrainian cargo ship off Somalia did not engage in a shootout that left three of them dead, as was claimed by Kenyan maritime officials, a representative for the group said Tuesday. There has been no dissension aboard the ship, said Sugale Ali Omar, who identified himself as a spokesman for the pirates and claimed to be aboard the hijacked vessel. "There was no shooting and there is no fighting among us," Omar said in a telephone interview.

An ad campaign featuring billboards and commercials with images of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin was pulled after protests. The campaign in the eastern Ukraine town of Donetsk came after people stopped paying utility bills following a rate increase. In the television ad, a voice says: "Those who don't pay for their heat should be punished!"

A Russian businessman was killed by a sniper as he was escorted from a courthouse in Kiev during a break in his extortion trial, a Ukrainian government official said. Maksim Kurochkin, 38, was hit by a bullet fired from a building next to the court, said Volodymyr Polishchuk, an Interior Ministry official. A police officer guarding the businessman was seriously wounded. Kurochkin had said the extortion charges were fabricated.

A Russian businessman who was killed this week by a sniper as he left a Ukrainian courthouse had warned during his trial that he was targeted for death. "I don't want to die. Please let me go," Maksim Kurochkin, 38, told the court Tuesday in Kiev, pleading to be released on bail because a contract had been placed on his life, Russian and Ukrainian news agencies reported Wednesday.

More than 70,000 demonstrators in Kiev called on the president to defeat a challenge from the rival prime minister by dissolving parliament and calling new elections. A smaller rally supported the prime minister. President Viktor Yushchenko accused Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich of trying to usurp power by recruiting lawmakers allied with the president. Dissolving parliament could spark a crisis, particularly if Yanukovich's coalition refuses to abide by such a move.

The political camps that faced off against each other during Ukraine's Orange Revolution slipped into fresh confrontation Monday as the parliament defied a call by the country's pro-Western president for early elections. The clash between President Viktor Yushchenko and the parliamentary majority backing pro-Russian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich threatened to spiral into a deeper crisis, as each side accused the other of violating the constitution.