Italy's Berlusconi visits Crimea, 'could' meet with Putin:
Former Italian Prime Minister Sylvio Berlusconi has arrived in the Ukrainian Black Sea region of Crimea, which was annexed by Russia in March 2014, for a "private visit."
Berlusconi arrived on September 11 in the resort city of Yalta, where he plans sightseeing and "several meetings."
On September 9, a Kremlin spokesman said he could "not rule out" that Berlusconi would meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin during the trip.
Berlusconi is also expected to visit Sevastopol, home port of the Russian Black Sea Fleet.
He is then expected to travel to Moscow and to return to Italy on September 13. (Interfax, TASS)
President Petro Poroshenko is to meet President Barack Obama during the UN General Assembly in New York this month. Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Pavlo Klimkin confirmed the meeting to the RFE/RL Ukrainian Service on the sidelines of the Yes Ukraine forum.
“We are currently working on the president’s program, the meeting will definitely take place," he said. "On what day, we don’t know yet,”
The UN General Assembly is to begin on September 15.
Reports about a new Russian military base allegedly being built close to the Ukrainian border have to be checked, said Ukrainian Minister of Defense Stepan Poltorak, who declined to comment further on the information.
When asked how many Russian military men are currently in Ukraine, Poltorak said about 9,000. The rotation of Russian military happens regularly, he added.
Reuters reported on September 9 that Moscow had started building a major military base in Belgorod Oblast, which abuts the Kharkiv region of Ukraine, just 25 kilometers from the border between two states.
The work of young Odesa artist Oleksandr Mìlova at the Burning Man festival
In 2014, Kyiv spent 85,700 hryvnas paying out debt from European soccer championship that took place in Kyiv in 2012.
Since the beginning of 2015 Ukrainians have transferred more than 6 million hryvnas (more than 250,000 dollars by the current exchange rate) to the Ministry of Defense in order to support the army.
According to Viktoria Kushnir, the ministry's spokesperson, 4 million hryvnas were spent on logistical support, and the rest on medical support.
Recently, the ministry prepared a 2016 budget request for almost 87 billion hryvnas. In 2014 the army budget totaled around 15 billion.