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 - 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.

Kiev- Ukraine will for the foreseeable future not deliver any more weapons shipments to Georgia, engaged in hostilities with Russia over the breakaway region of South Ossetia, Interfax news agency reported Monday.

"In this phase we will examine the possibility of giving political and humanitarian help to Tbilisi," Ukrainian Foreign Minister Konstantin Yeliseyev said in Kiev.

He justified earlier arms shipments to Georgia from Ukraine as not violating any international norms.

Kiev - Seven persons died in a bloody Ukrainian auto smashup on a highway near the Crimean city of Simferopol, the Interfax news agency reported Thursday.

The accident took place when a small four-seat car with seven people left its lane and collided with a lorry travelling in the opposite direction.

The heavy freight vehicle tore off the left side and roof of the smaller Soviet-era VAZ passenger car, which ended in a ditch.

All seven occupants of the VAZ - including three children, one a 6-month-old baby - died. The lorry driver suffered light injuries.

The seven people were members of two families heading to the Black Sea for a summer holiday, according to the report.

Kiev- High water had caused massive back-ups on the Moldova-Ukraine border on Tuesday as the region attempted to recover from the region's worst flooding in a generation.

Queues of cars were stretching up to ten kilometres on either side of the two former Soviet republics' common border, with delays according to Channel 5 television lasting as much as 24 hours.

Overflowing rivers and torrential rain pushed water levels to record highs on Sunday, killing 22 Ukrainians and causing property damage estimated at half a billion dollars.