The husband of Ukraine's jailed former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko sought political asylum in the Czech Republic at the end of last year, a Czech newspaper reported Friday.

Oleksandr Tymoshenko, a 51-year-old businessman who also has a stake in Czech company International Industrial Projects, has a fair chance of getting the asylum, the Pravo daily said.

Russia on Friday took control of the Belarus gas pipeline network in an economic rescue deal that will help Minsk survive isolation by the West and increase the Kremlin's influence over its neighbor.

Russian gas giant Gazprom said it would pay $2.5 billion to take the 50 percent stake it does not own in Beltransgaz in a deal easing pressure on the depleted treasury of Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko.

A man claiming to be a former candidate for the post of governor of the U.S. state of Arizona has been found homeless and lovelorn in the west of Ukraine, aid workers said on Thursday.

The man, aged 53, carries the passport of Cary Dolego who in 2010 was a minor candidate for the governor of Arizona, said Anastasia Beridze of the social services charity in the western Ukrainian city of Chernivtsi that found him.

Russia's top military commander warned on Thursday of a growing threat of conflicts along its borders that could even escalate into a nuclear war.

"The possibility of local armed conflicts along nearly the whole border has increased sharply," General Nikolai Makarov said, citing the fact that many of the country's Soviet partners are gravitating towards NATO.

Communist supporters clashed with Ukrainian nationalists in central Kiev on Monday during an unsanctioned rally marking the anniversary of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution.

Shoving and shouting broke out when groups of nationalists that promote independence from Russia tried to stop some 1,000 mostly elderly demonstrators from walking down a main street with portraits of Stalin and Lenin.

A young Ukrainian women's rights activist sneaked past security and partially stripped in front the Vatican's Saint-Peter Basilica just after the Pope's Sunday Angelus.

The blonde activist, initially wearing tight jeans and a see-through black tulle top, struck provocative poses against the dramatic backdrop of the basilica and the papal apartments, where Benedict XVI had given his traditional blessing moments earlier.

Riot police clashed with protesters outside the Ukrainian parliament Thursday during the latest in a series of demonstrations against government policies that have rattled the authorities.

Around 2,000 protestors, including veterans of the clean-up from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster and private businessmen, were gathered outside the parliament when the violence broke, an Agence France Presse correspondent reported.

Ukraine on Wednesday attempted to contain the damage caused to its image and diplomatic ties after both the West and Russia angrily condemned the jailing of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

A Kiev court on Tuesday jailed the leader of the pro-Western 2004 Orange Revolution for seven years, prompting allegations that President Viktor Yanukovych was resorting to Stalinist methods to deal with opponents.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Tuesday said he was bewildered by the seven-year sentence handed to his former Ukrainian counterpart Yulia Tymoshenko.

The Russian leader spoke in Beijing after a Ukrainian judge earlier in the day sentenced Tymoshenko to seven years in jail for abusing her powers in a gas deal with him in 2009.

A Ukrainian judge on Tuesday sentenced former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko to seven years in jail for abusing her powers in a 2009 gas deal with Russia, a verdict that is set to harm ties with the European Union.

Amid emotional scenes in the packed court, Judge Rodion Kireyev said the 10 year contract for gas imports from Russia had sustained heavy losses for Ukraine and ruled that her actions were criminal.