The cabinet's press service said Wednesday that Zurab Alasania is now the NTK's director-general. Alasania, an ethnic Georgian, is a founder of the MediaPort online news portal in the eastern city of Kharkiv.

His appointment comes a week after Ihor Miroshnychenko, a lawmaker from the nationalist Svoboda (Liberty) party, and several other people forced NTK's then-acting chief, Oleksandr Panteleymonov, to write a letter of resignation.

A video posted online showed Miroshnychenko and the others hitting Panteleymonov in the head and face and verbally insulting him. The group accused Panteleymonov of working for Russian authorities.

The incident was condemned by the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, the OSCE's representative for freedom of the media, and Amnesty International, who called those who abused Panteleymonov "thugs."

Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov says Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan are still "far from an understanding" on the free trade in oil and gas.

The three countries plan to sign an agreement on the formation of the Eurasian Economic Union, which aims at deep economic integration between members, in May.

But Shuvalov told lawmakers that all sides favored retaining restrictions on the trade in oil, gas, and other sensitive products such as alcohol, tobacco, and medical drugs for several years.

The Kremlin aims at launching the union, modeled after the European Union, by 2015.

UPDATE: These are official numbers from the survey.

February 2013 survey:
* 33 percent strong supporters of the Customs Union; 29 percent partial supporters; 10 percent opponents; 11 percent partial opponents; and 17 percent had no opinion.

2014 survey:
* 26 percent strong supporters of the Customs Union; 23 percent partial supporters; 21 percent opponents; 14 percent partial opponents and 16 percent had no opinion.

Oleksandr Turchynov said Ukrainian armed forces plan to conduct two sets of military exercises with the United States this summer.

Turchynov also requested approval for maneuvers with NATO member Poland, as well as joint ground operations with Moldova and Romania.

All of the exercises are to be conducted this year. The request came just hours after Russia's general staff announced it now controlls all of Crimea's 193 military facilities previously belonging to Ukraine.

Karapetian rushed to deny the report, saying that his meeting with Turchak was of a ‘fact-finding nature’ and that during it they mostly discussed community issues, as well as issues connected with the development of economic ties between the Pskov Oblast and Armenia.

The Armenian diplomat underscored that he did not make any such statements during the meeting, suggesting that the reporter who covered the event "may have confused something."

“Taking the opportunity, I said that, of course, our official position is -- and both the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other sources declared about that -- that the right of peoples to self-determination, which was accepted in relevant UN documents, must be respected. I also cited the example of Nagorno-Karabakh as a self-determined territory and our conversation was limited to that," Karapetian explained.

"Probably the regional correspondent, who was listening to our conversation, concluded for himself that this could be presented as a greeting or congratulation regarding the recognition of Crimea [as part of Russia], and that way the wrongwording appeared. I corrected that, turning to the corresponding news service, the problem was corrected,” Armenia’s consul general to St. Petersburg told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service (Azatutyun.am).

"Such decision does not meet Ukrainian obligations in the area of human rights, in particular media freedom, in the least. And certainly, such kind of a decision has nothing to do with the declarations of the de facto authorities in Kyiv about their intentions to respect human rights, basic freedoms, and to strengthen democracy."