Ukraine's prime minister vows Crimea will be returned:
Ukraine's prime minister has suggested that Kyiv is unlikely to see the return of Russian-annexed Crimea soon, but vowed the peninsula will be returned to Ukraine one day.
Arseniy Yatsenyuk told reporters on December 30 during an end-of-year press conference in Kyiv that if the current generation of Ukrainians does not get Crimea back under Kyiv's control, "then our children or grandchildren will."
Yatsenyuk said there is no "quick and easy answer" to the question of how Ukraine can get back the Black Sea region, which was annexed by Russia in March.
The Ukrainian prime minister also said bilateral trade between Ukraine and Russia dropped by 50 percent in 2014 and that, "very soon," Russia will no longer be Ukraine's top trade partner.
Yatsenyuk blamed Moscow for the decline in trade, saying it "has never observed and is not observing a single bilateral agreement, including in the economic field." (UNIAN, Interfax)
Obama thinks Putin hasn't been so smart over Ukraine:
U.S. President Barack Obama says people outside Russia are beginning to think Vladimir Putin's actions over the past year have not been "so smart."
Obama spoke to NPR in an interview whose transcript was released on December 29.
He said that "three or four months ago, everybody in Washington was convinced that President Putin was a genius and he had outmaneuvered all of us and he had bullied and strategized his way into expanding Russian power."
By contrast, Obama said, "Today, I'd sense that at least outside of Russia, maybe some people are thinking what Putin did wasn't so smart."
The United States and European Union have imposed economic sanctions on Russia over its annexation of Crimea and support for separatists who have seized territory in eastern Ukraine.
Obama said it takes "strategic patience" to deal with problems like Russia's recent actions.
More from the Poroshenko presser:
President Petro Poroshenko has signed a law abandoning Ukraine's neutral "non-bloc" status, and said Ukrainians will decide whether the country should seek NATO membership once it meets the standards of the Western military alliance.
Poroshenko predicted that moment would come in five or six years.
He signed the law on December 29 during an end-of-year news conference in Kyiv.
"When Ukraine meets the appropriate standards -- I think that will be done within 5-6 years in the framework of strategy 2020 -- then the people of Ukraine will determine whether the country will join NATO," Poroshenko said.
The new law scraps 2010 legislation that barred Ukraine from seeking to join any military alliance.
Ukraine's parliament passed the law on December 23, drawing vocal criticism from Russia.
Poroshenko told lawmakers that day that Russian "aggression agains Ukraine" created the need for "more effective guarantees of independence, sovereignty, security, and territorial integrity."