Category: Ukraine

Ukraine ’s new leader, Petro Poroshenko, said the violence that’s rocked the former Soviet republic’s easternmost regions must end this week as peace talks began involving an envoy of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Poroshenko, who took the oath of office June 7, said negotiations should be held daily. Yesterday’s three-way talks in Kiev included the Ukrainian ambassador to Germany , Pavlo Klimkin, the Russian envoy to Ukraine, Mikhail Zurabov, and Heidi Tagliavini, a special representative of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. “We must stop the violence this week,” Poroshenko said on his website. “Every day when people die, every day when Ukraine pays such a high price is unacceptable.” Poroshenko, who was sworn in a day after discussing proposals toward a cease-fire with Putin, used his inauguration speech to present a plan to bring peace after more than six months of unrest that’s pitted the U.S. […]

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| License Photo Ukraine gets an extra day to pay off its $2.2 billion debt for Russian gas deliveries, Russian energy company Gazprom said. Gazprom had set a June 9 deadline for Ukraine to pay off its debt to avoid potentially triggering a repeat of gas shortages that gripped Europeans in 2006 and 2009. Debt rows in those years prompted Gazprom to cut gas through Ukraine, which hosts the bulk of the Russian gas bound for Europe through its Soviet-era transit network. Alexei Miller , the top executive at Gazprom, met in Berlin with Andrei Kobolev, his counterpart at Ukrainian energy company Naftogaz, to discuss the debt issues. "On request of the Ukrainian party, the debt settlement deadline was postponed until June 10, due to June 9 being a holiday in Ukraine," the Russian energy company said in a statement Wednesday. The $2.2 billion in debt covers gas bills […]

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Share this page Delicious Digg Facebook reddit StumbleUpon Twitter Email Print Trade, climate change and development are high on Thursday’s G7 agenda Continue reading the main story Leaders of the G7 industrial nations meeting in Brussels say they are prepared to impose further sanctions on Russia over its actions in Ukraine. A joint statement condemned Moscow for its "continuing violation" of Ukraine’s sovereignty. The G7 summit is the first since Russia was expelled from the group following its annexation of Crimea in March. On Thursday, leaders are set to discuss the global economic outlook, climate change and development issues. Although Russian President Vladimir Putin is not at the Brussels summit, he will hold face-to-face talks with some G7 leaders – not including US President Barack Obama – in Paris afterwards. However, both Mr Putin and Mr Obama will attend a ceremony commemorating the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings […]

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Border guards here, near the Russian border in eastern Ukraine, fled their posts for fear of attacks by separatist militias on Wednesday, helping open a strategic corridor for the transport of goods, contraband and war material from Russia that could lead to a widening of the conflict in eastern Ukraine. As evening fell in this small frontier town, a convoy of about 20 trucks, minivans and cars containing border guards and their families, including children, bumped over the rutted roads here along Ukraine’s eastern frontier with Russia. Their commander, who gave his name only as Sergei, said they had received confused orders but that they decided to leave, fearing for their lives and their families’ safety. Earlier on Wednesday, rebels overran the border guards’ central command headquarters in Luhansk, unplugging a large stretch of Ukraine’s southeastern border from central government oversight. A number of border guards […]

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Surface-to-air missiles pilfered from army bases. Defectors from Ukraine’s elite special forces. Russian fighters who slipped across a porous border. These are some of the biggest problems facing Ukraine’s military in the rebellious east, and they were all on prominent display here in the unlikely setting of the Donetsk Botanical Garden , where the Vostok Battalion, the largest separatist militia in this city of one million people, has established a training camp. “We are an international battalion,” said Aleksandr Khodakovsky, the rebel commander, who led the government’s Alfa special forces unit in the Donetsk region until he resigned after the February revolution in Kiev. Mr. Khodakovsky said that Russian citizens were among his fighters, but that the “overwhelming majority” of his force of more than 500 came from eastern Ukraine. He denied any link to Russia. As the threat of a Russian invasion into eastern Ukraine […]

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Hundreds of separatist fighters attacked a district border control headquarters in the eastern Ukrainian city of Luhansk on Monday in the largest battle against the country’s border protection forces since unrest in the east began. A government spokesman said the action appeared to be aimed at seizing control of the border with Russia to open it to forces and supplies. The attack in Luhansk, Ukraine’s easternmost province, began at 4 a.m. and fighting was still raging at noon. Oleg Slobodyan, a spokesman for the Ukrainian state border service, said about 500 rebels had stormed the district headquarters building in the Mirny neighborhood, using automatic weapons and rocket launchers with snipers posted in nearby apartment buildings. Five rebels were killed and eight wounded, Mr. Slobodyan said, though there was no independent confirmation of that count. Seven border guards were injured, he added. The attack was a deeply […]

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Ukraine and Russia came closer to a truce in their long-running feud over natural-gas prices Monday after agreeing on new proposals to break the deadlock. The two sides agreed during talks in Brussels to consider a new proposed price and draw up a repayment plan for natural-gas debts accrued by Ukraine, the European Union’s Energy Chief Günther Oettinger said. They are due to reconvene by the middle of next week. Russian gas monopoly OAO Gazprom and Ukraine’s state energy firm Naftogaz will now complete the proposals and consult with their shareholders before giving a verdict. If they agree on a deal, it would mark the end of a dispute that spiraled since Ukraine’s former President Viktor Yanukovych, a Russian ally, left office in February. "Real progress has been made. Intensive discussions led to a bilateral meeting between the CEOs of Gazprom and Naftogaz who discussed key commercial issues for […]

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Payments for gas deliveries in February and March were made by the Ukrainian government, averting a disruption, the Russian Energy Ministry said Monday. The Ukrainian government announced the payment Friday and a spokesman for the Russian Energy Ministry confirmed its receipt in a statement to state news agency RIA Novosti. "The Russian energy ministry confirms it had received $786 million in two payments, intended [to cover deliveries] in February and March," he said . The debt payment follows a round of trilateral talks between Russia, Ukraine and the European Union. EU member states rely on Russia for about a quarter of their gas needs and similar disputes in 2006 and 2009 left European consumers without gas as much of those supplies run through a Soviet-era pipeline network in Ukraine. Alexei Miller , chief executive of Russian energy company Gazprom, said his company would postpone the start […]

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Gazprom, Russia’s state-owned natural gas producer, has pushed back its ultimatum to Ukraine on imposing pre-payment for natural gas deliveries after the country paid $786m in arrears, according to the company’s chief executive Alexei Miller. The company had said previously that it would from Tuesday deliver only gas that had already been paid for, raising the prospect of supplies to Ukraine being cut off immediately and disruptions in onward gas flows to Europe. "Ukraine has paid the first instalment for gas supplies. Today $786m entered Gazprom’s account," Miller was quoted as saying in a company statement on Monday. "We welcome Ukraine starting to pay back its debt and postpone the pre-payment regime until June 9. "The introduction of the pre-payment regime will depend on the full repayment of the debt for gas supplied up to April 1 in the amount of $2.237bn, part of which was paid today, and on the progress in payments […]

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