Switzerland is to adopt a law that should speed up the return of former President Viktor Yanukovych’s assets to Ukraine, Reuters reports. The law, which may be adopted by the end of the year, will reportedly help lead to the restitution of Yanukovych’s illicit funds that are kept in Switzerland.
Swiss authorities are cooperating with countries including Haiti, Egypt, Tunisia, and Ukraine to return stolen assets that have been frozen following changes in power, according to Valentin Zellweger, the head of the Swiss Foreign Ministry's federal department of international law.
At the moment, Ukraine’s Prosecutor-General’s Office still has to provide sufficient evidence that would allow the return of Yanukovych’s frozen funds to Ukraine. The former president also had his accounts frozen in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.
Images of the town east of Mariupol that was the center of fighting in recent weeks:
A group of people gathered next to the Russian Consulate in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv to protest the sentencing of Oleh Sentsov and Oleksandr Kolchenko.
Protesters hold signs that read "Great betrayal begins with a little cowardice" and "Russia, free Sentsov and Kolchenko."
The local police is present too.
Report With Tally Of 'Russian War Casualties' Causes Stir
A Russian-language website has caused a stir with a report asserting that more than 2,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in the conflict in eastern Ukraine. Read more
Ukraine negotiators call for truce from Sept 1:
The warring sides in the conflict in eastern Ukraine have agreed to strive for an end to all truce violations from September 1 -- the day the new school year is to begin.
The OSCE special representative in Ukraine, Martin Sajdik, said on August 26 that the sides "agreed to jointly verify the fulfillment of this initiative."
He was speaking after representatives of Ukraine, Russia, and separatists met under the auspices of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in the Belarusian capital, Minsk.
"Today there is a hope that from September 1 we will succeed fully in ending the firing," rebel representative Vladislav Deinego said. "At the moment all sides have expressed the intention of abiding by this idea."
Fighting between Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed separatists has killed at least 6,400 people in eastern Ukraine since April 2014.
A cease-fire agreement reached in Minsk in February has been regularly violated. (Reuters, AP)