Meanwhile, here's some economics news from AFP:
Ukraine's Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said Thursday [December 11] the country urgently needed billions in additional aid to avoid the economy collapsing into default.
Yatsenyuk said an international donor conference was urgently needed to get the extra money -- which he said could amount to $15 billion on top of the billions already promised in grants and loans from the West.
"In order to survive in this difficult period and avoid default, we need an international donor conference and the help of our Western partners," he told parliament.
Lawmakers voted to approve the government's general program on Thursday, which includes a number of severe austerity cuts imposed by international lenders.
The lenders want deep cuts to welfare services and a hike in energy prices to help balance the books.
Brussels has repeatedly postponed plans for a donors' meeting to help Ukraine's crippled economy.
During a visit to the country late last month, EU neighborhood commissioner Johannes Hahn said there would be no meeting until there were "sound proposals about a roadmap for reforms and first tangible results".
The International Monetary Fund has been in the country since Tuesday [December 9] on a nine-day visit to determine how much extra aid the war-wrecked and energy-starved nation will need to make it through the winter.
The Fund helped piece together a $27-billion (22-billion-euro) global rescue package -- promising to contribute $17 billion of that sum over two years -- in the weeks that followed the February ouster in Kiev of a Russian-backed president.
The IMF has warned Ukraine could need as much as $19 billion more if the war in its eastern region drags on to the end of 2015.
The visit is seen as a vote of confidence in the reformist cabinet that President Petro Poroshenko put together in late November after weeks of political infighting that left Ukraine's Western supporters frustrated and dismayed.
The finance ministry is now headed by Natalie Jaresko -- a US citizen who once worked in the State Department and more recently held a senior post in a private equity firm in Kiev.
The Lithuanian investment banker Aivaras Abromavicius will serve alongside her as economy minister. Both were handed Ukrainian passports by Poroshenko just hours ahead of their confirmation by parliament.
We are now closing our live blog for today. Don't forget that you can keep abreast of all our ongoing Ukraine coverage here.
RUSSIAN RUBLE AT NEW HISTORICAL LOW OF BELOW 57 VS DOLLAR ON MOSCOW EXCHANGE -- Reuters
From our newsroom:
The Russian ruble hit a new low of 57 to the dollar in early trading on the Moscow exchange on December 12.
The ruble's value against the dollar and the euro has continued to decline despite Russia's effort to shore it up by raising a key interest rate by one percentage point on December 11 in the fifth increase this year.
The ruble recovered slightly and was trading at about 56.75 to the dollar at mid-morning in Moscow.
One euro was buying more than 70 rubles on the exchange.
The ruble and Russia's energy-reliant economy have been battered for months by falling world oil prices and sanctions imposed by the United States, the EU, and other nations over Moscow's interference in Ukraine.
Russian share prices were also on the decline on December 12, with the RTS index falling more than 4 percent in early trading.
With reporting by Reuters and TASS