Kiev, Moscow  - The daughter of Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko stepped up her career as a fashion model with runway work at a Milan show, Russia's Izvestia newspaper reported Tuesday.

Vitalina Yushchenko took part in the showing of the summer collection of the Ukrainian designer Aina Gase, according to the report.

Vitalina's portfolio also includes photographs posed for Russian Vogue. Prior to taking up modelling, the 27-year-old mother-of-two had pursued a career as a pop singer.

Vitalina is Yushchenko's eldest child by a previous marriage.

Kiev/Moscow - Ukraine's ruling coalition collapsed, the parliamentary speaker said Tuesday, in a feud between between President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko over whether Russia or the West holds the former Soviet country's future.

"I officially announce the collapse of the coalition of democratic forces," Speaker Arseny Yatsenyuk was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying.

Yushchenko's Our Ukraine party, which aspires to join NATO and the European Union, pulled out of the shared coalition with Tymoshenko's bloc at the beginning of September after she paired with the pro- Russian opposition to oppose some of the president's policies.

Kiev/Moscow - Ukrainian parliament Speaker Arseny Yatsenyuk said Monday he expected the coalition to break up on Tuesday as a deadline to resolve differences expired.

"Come with flowers, come with wreathes to the funeral of the democratic coalition," Yatsenyuk told journalists in Kiev, Interfax news agency reported.

The fallout between the West and Russia over last month's war in Georgia has imploded, leaving Ukraine's fragile ruling coalition deeply divided over its identity.

Kiev - Ukraine's parliament has rammed through legislation directly challenging President Viktor Yushchenko, placing the country's pro-West ruling coalition in jeopardy, local media reported on Wednesday.

A parliamentary faction led by Yushchenko's erstwhile ally, former prime minister Yulia Tymoshehnko, switched sides during a stormy Monday evening session to join with the pro-Russia Regions Party to approve a package of bills directly aimed at reducing the presidency to the status of mere figurehead.

Kiev - A massive army munitions depot fire and exploding ammunition forced the evacuation of thousands of villagers in east Ukraine, Channel 5 television reported Thursday.

The nighttime blaze near the town Lozova in Ukraine's Kharkiv province had produced hundreds of detonations so far, threatening firefighters with shrapnel and making quick control of the fire impossible, Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko said.

Two storage buildings the Soviet-era artillery shell and rocket dump were burning, and 120-millimetre mortar rounds were detonating "almost every minute" said Viktor Baloga, a government spokesman.

Kiev- Top Ukrainian politicians were split on Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev's recognition of the independance of the Georgian breakaway regions Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Pro-Russia politician Viktor Yanukovich, head of Ukraine's opposition Regions party, supported Medvedev's move, saying "Ukraine should respect the will of the peoples of Abkhazia and South Ossetia."

In an Interfax news agency interview, Yanukovich said the status of the two regions was similar to Kosovo's separation from Serbia, and argued Ukraine should recognise the independence of both renegade Georgian provinces.