Live Blog: Crisis In Ukraine (Archive)

The youngest son of U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, has been appointed head of legal affairs at Ukraine's largest private gas producer — a move he said would benefit Ukrainians and the country's economy.

In a statement published on its website, Burisma Holdings announced Hunter Biden would join its board of directors and head the company's legal unit.

"As a new member of the board, I believe that my assistance in consulting the company on matters of transparency, corporate governance and responsibility, international expansion and other priorities will contribute to the economy and benefit the people of Ukraine," Hunter Biden said in the statement.

Burisma owns several Ukrainian oil and gas companies, including Esko Pivnich and Pari, Lenta.ru reported Tuesday. The company also has assets in Ukraine's Dnepr-Donetsk, the Carpathian and the Azov-Kuvan basins.

The Ukrainian Defense Ministry said a convoy of armored vehicles was attacked outside the city of Kramatorsk on May 13 by some 30 rebels who were using grenade launchers and automatic weapons.

Eight soldiers were injured.

Kramatorsk, in Donetsk region, is one of a string of eastern Ukrainian towns where pro-Russian separatists have established their control.

Our Ukrainian Service reports that one of the wounded is in serious condition.

"We will strongly recommend to the new president [of Ukraine following the planned May 25 election] to pay his first visit to Brussels and to sign the DCFTA (Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area) and to accomplish the deal between Ukraine and the European Union."

"We need to preserve peace an stability in my country. Mr. President, you have mentioned that we need to engage Russia and we fully share your opinion, but it seems that Russia is already engaged in supporting Russian-led protests and terrorists. We urge Russia to condemn them and to urge all the so-called protesters or really terrorists to leave and vacate [state] buildings and to do anything it can to stabilize the situation in Ukraine."

"We are and were clear on our deal with Russia. We sent to Russian Gazprom a pretrial notification asking Russia urgently to revise the deal, which is to be based on the market conditions. If Russia rejects this, we will bring Russia to court in Stockholm. If I am not mistaken, [there are] less than 20 days left [before it happens]. And this is the final call for Russia to sit at the negotiating table and to find a solution."

"Let me raise one very important issue -- Russia annexed Crimea. Russia seized Ukrainian property -- tens or hundreds of billions of dollars, including state-owned oil and gas company Chernomorneftegaz, which is a Black Sea oil and gas company. They have stolen more than 2 billion cubic meters of Ukrainian natural gas. They have stolen our [oil and gas] fields, they have stolen our companies, they have stolen our onshore and offshore drills. We will see Russia in court [on this matter], too."

"The Ukrainian government facilitated its road map [of reconciliation with anti-Kyiv protesters] and it is great that the road map that has been proposed by the Ukrainian government has a number of similarities with the road map that has been proposed by the [OSCE's] chairman-in-office. But this is to be a Ukrainian-led and Ukrainian-owned process."

"We are doing our best to hold free and fair presidential elections. We consider that we can further stabilize the situation in Eastern Ukraine [through the election] because we still maintain stability in southern Ukraine despite the fact that Russia tried desperately to escalate and trigger attention in southern Ukraine. We do acknowledge that there will be some spots -- hotspots -- where it will be difficult to hold free and fair elections. But the Central Election Commission is doing everything in order to provide access to all Ukrainian voters to cast their ballots and have a legitimate president in Ukraine."

"The Ukrainian system of government, the election of the next president of Ukraine, and agreements with third countries are decisions for the Ukrainian people to fully decide without external interference. The doctrine of limited sovereignty should belong to history books. And history belongs to those that embrace the future, not those who try to hijack it."

"The new state-building contract program I just signed with [Ukrainian] Prime Minister [Yatsenyuk] worth 355 million euros -- plus 10 million euros to support civil society -- will help the government of Ukraine to address short-term economic stabilization needs and implement governance reform in order to promote inclusive social economic development."

"Another major deliverable of today's meeting was the conclusion of the Memorandum of Assistance to Ukraine that is necessary to give effect to the one-billion-euro macro-financial assistance loan program."

"Our message to Russia is to engage, to implement its part of the Geneva statement, to repeal the mandate of the Federation Council to use force on Ukrainian soil, and to act as a responsible stakeholder in our community of nations."

"My opinion is that it is still not too late if Russia wants to work constructively. I believe it is in the interest of everybody in Europe, including Russia, to cease these kind of actions and that we can turn back this page and that we can in fact come to a de-escalation -- a real de-escalation -- of the conflict."

"One of the things that we condemn is the Russian restriction not only on free speech but access to free media. The clamping down [on] free and independent voices in Russia is something that we are harshly critical of. In this job, I have seen the power and effectiveness of Russian propaganda -- of their ability to get out their point of view. They are in many, many cases unbound by the truth, unbound by fidelity to reality. That's always harder for us to combat, because we believe that we have to hew strongly to the truth, that we have to remain faithful to the truth and to the reality. In the end, I do think that fidelity to the truth will triumph, but it is difficult in the meantime."