Ukraine halts work on preparing agreement with EU

The Ukrainian government on Thursday ordered work to be halted on preparations to sign a historic trade and political agreement with the European Union at a key summit this month. The decree ordered the "halt of the process of preparing the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the European Union," said the text of the document posted on the government website. Finally quashing the chance of Ukraine signing the Association Agreement at a summit in Vilnius next week, the government instead proposed creating a three-way trade commission between Ukraine, the European Union and Russia.