CANADIAN Prime Minister Justin Trudeau signed a free trade agreement with Ukraine yesterday even as political prisoners continued to languish in jail.

The Liberal Party PM took the opportunity to blame Russia and Kiev for slow progress in implementing the Minsk II peace agreement.

“It is obvious that Ukraine has made some extremely important and difficult steps in parliament and in their institutions to live up to their responsibilities on Minsk,” Mr Trudeau said.

“And it’s also clear that the security side of the Minsk implementation, Russia has not been a positive partner.”

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko told a press conference at the end of the talks in Kiev that the free trade deal will do away with “99 per cent of barriers within the next seven years in trade” between the two countries.

Mr Trudeau announced £10 million-worth of “humanitarian aid” to Kiev, currently locked in civil war with anti-fascists in the east which broke away after February 2014’s coup, backed by far-right groups and Western powers including Canada.

But when asked about the possibility arms sales to Ukraine, he said: “Right now the focus is on the training mission” that Canada is conducting with the Ukrainian army.

Meanwhile the Communist Party of Ukraine (KPU) condemned the continued detention of its Kharkiv Regional Committee First Secretary and former MP Alla Aleksandrovskaya on trumped-up charges since the start of the month.

She was arrested for infringement of the territorial integrity of Ukraine — a charge commonly levelled against critics of the government’s war on the eastern Donbass region.

The Kharkiv court of appeal did not allow Ms Aleksandrovskaya to attend an appeal against her imprisonment last Friday, but the KPU said members of neonazi group Right Sector were present.

It said the fascists “formed up” the jury to sing the national anthem and shout: “Glory to the nation — death to the enemy.”

Advocate Alexander Shadrin said that Ms Aleksandrovskaya’s prosecution was intended “to shut her mouth, to isolate her from public and do not even bring her to trial.”

The KPU warned that its 67-year-old’s member health was “a great concern” and “there is a high risk of death if timely medical care is not provided.”