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Russia on Wednesday offered to restore the discounted gas price it granted Ukraine under the ousted pro-Russian president, but Ukraine demanded an even better deal and called for arbitration to settle the dispute. Speaking in Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Russia was offering the discount as a "partnership deal." Russia's energy minister, Alexander Novak, specified the price offered as $385 per 1,000 cubic meters of gas. "We believe that our offer is more than in a partnership spirit, aimed to support the Ukrainian economy at a rather difficult time," Putin said in televised remarks. "But if our offers are...

<p>Ukraine's gas company, Naftogaz, announced at a European Union-mediated meeting in Berlin Friday with Gazprom and the Russian and Ukrainian energy ministers that it has transferred $786 million to Gazprom, EU Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger said. That covers deliveries in February and March, a period for which the price charged to Ukraine is undisputed, Ukrainian Energy Minister Yuri Prodan said.</p>

The EU has unveiled plans to reduce its reliance on Russian gas, with increased imports from Norway and energy efficiency at the top of its wish list. […] Although EU countries import 88 percent of the oil that they use, as well as 42 percent of solid fuel, the main concern of the commission and governments is gas—66 percent of Europe’s gas is imported at a cost of more than €1 billion per day. Of the 400 billion cubic metres of gas consumed in the EU each year, around 40 percent comes from Russia’s state-owned Gazprom. The majority of this...

In Shanghai, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping signed a spectacular energy deal — $400 billion of Siberian natural gas to be exported to China over 30 years. This is huge. By indelibly linking producer and consumer — the pipeline alone is a $70 billion infrastructure project — it deflates the post-Ukraine Western threat (mostly empty, but still very loud) to cut European imports of Russian gas. Putin has just defiantly demonstrated that he has other places to go. The Russia-China deal also makes a mockery of U.S. boasts to have isolated Russia because of Ukraine. Not even...

China and Russia evidently have concluded a 30-year gas deal which shifts the balance of Russian hydrocarbon exports eastwards, but that’s not the thing to focus on. Pravda reports: The central themes of the talks between the two leaders will be two projects in the field of aviation – the creation of a joint wide-body long-haul aircraft and the production of Mi-26 heavy helicopter in China, the Kommersant reports.Russia, entering into such cooperation with China, indicates that it is ready to open access to Russian aircraft technologies, despite the fact that China previously resorted to building unlicensed copies of...

I like Putin. I think he is doing a good job. I like him much better than I like Obama. Funny, ain't it - an old anticommunist admiring the former head of the KGB?

<p>Russia has warned the Ukrainian government to pull its military from the restive southeast of its own territory, saying it could invade to “protect” pro-Russian separatists there – just as it did in Georgia, another former Soviet republic that Moscow invaded six years ago.</p>

aid on Saturday it was suspending payments to Russia for deliveries of gas, ratcheting up the tension in a standoff that has the potential to leave European Union states cut off from the Russian gas supplies on which they depend. In eastern Ukraine, where groups of pro-Russian activists have been emboldened by the Kremlin's annexation of the Crimean Peninsula, a band of armed men in mismatched camouflage outfits seized a police station in the town of Slaviansk. Russia and Ukraine have been locked in confrontation since protests in Kiev forced the Moscow-backed president from office, and the Kremlin sent troops...

MOSCOW, April 10 (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin warned European leaders on Thursday Russia would cut natural gas supplies to Ukraine if it did not pay its bills and said this could lead to a reduction of onward deliveries to Europe. In a letter to the leaders of 18 countries, he demanded urgent talks with Europe on pulling Ukraine's economy out of crisis but made clear his patience was running out over Kiev's $2.2 billion gas debt to its former Soviet master.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House on Monday warned Russian President Vladimir Putin against moving "overtly or covertly" into eastern Ukraine and said there was strong evidence that pro-Russian demonstrators in the region were being paid.

KIEV, Ukraine — The Ukrainian government dispatched its highest-level police and security officials to the eastern part of the country Monday in an effort to put down separatist violence described as inspired by Russia and following a script that played out in Crimea. “The plan is to destabilize the situation,” Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk told an emergency cabinet meeting Monday morning. “The plan is for foreign troops to cross the border and seize the country’s territory, which we will not allow.” On Sunday, pro-Russian demonstrations in the eastern cities of Kharkiv, Donetsk and Luhansk that had been orderly the last...

MOSCOW, April 4 (Reuters) - Russia's top natural gas producer, Gazprom, will eventually lose more than it gains from raising the gas price for Ukraine by 80 percent, analysts said on Friday, predicting Kiev would cut purchases and fail to pay in full. Gazprom on Thursday announced a price rise for Ukraine to $485 per 1,000 cubic metres, the second increase in three days. The $485 price is the highest of any Gazprom customer and compares with around $370 on average for clients in the European Union. Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk said the increase, two weeks after Moscow annexed...

MOSCOW, March 26. /ITAR-TASS/. The level of Russian electoral support to incumbent Russian President Vladimir Putin has reached the figures of the country’s presidential elections in 2004 for the first time, the presidential rating peak is caused by his responsible actions in view of current crisis in Ukraine, political experts told Itar-Tass in comments on the Public Opinion Fund (FOM) survey results made public on Wednesday. The FOM sociological survey conducted on March 23 showed that 64% of Russians would vote for Putin, if presidential elections were held next Sunday. Sociologists polled three thousand respondents in 64 Russian constituent entities....

The poor citizens of Ukraine remain poor while the world bickers with their plight, an apparent after thought. Engagement in Ukraine by the European Parliament has been clearly apparent in recent years. Alas the transcripts provide an unfortunate reminder that the size of the EU apparatus has ultimately fed an incompetent blob as opposed to producing rational decisions. An obsession with expansion at all costs of the EU sphere of influence has dominated thought. Back on December 13, 2012, the European Parliament passed a rather chilling motion, made more acutely frightening by subsequent events: "The EU is concerned about the...

Vladimir Putin probably didn’t expect that newly announced Russian sanctions on nine Americans – three top White House aides, three Republicans and three Democrats in Congress – would spark a bipartisan love-in in Washington.But that’s exactly what happened on Thursday as Moscow retaliated for expanded U.S. sanctions by freezing the assets of a select handful of high-profile Americans and banning them from travel inside Russia.Here’s an early response from a spokesman for Republican House Speaker John Boehner on Twitter to Dan Pfeiffer, a senior adviser to President Obama, for making the list...

(Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin accused the United States on Monday of being guided in its foreign policy not by international law but by the "rule of the gun." "Our Western partners headed by the United States prefer not to be guided by international law in their practical policies, but by the rule of the gun," he told a joint session of parliament.

Dear friends, we have gathered here today in connection with an issue that is of vital, historic significance to all of us. A referendum was held in Crimea on March 16 in full compliance with democratic procedures and international norms. More than 82 percent of the electorate took part in the vote. Over 96 percent of them spoke out in favour of reuniting with Russia. These numbers speak for themselves. To understand the reason behind such a choice it is enough to know the history of Crimea and what Russia and Crimea have always meant for each other. Everything in...

The all-out street war in Ukraine’s capital city of Kiev between anti-government protesters and security forces had its beginnings in late November, when President Viktor Yanukovych rejected a bid for closer integration of his country with the European Union. Protests began peacefully, but reports that security services used excessive force on demonstrators escalated the situation. As of Wednesday, dozens of people have been killed, including protesters and police officers, and hundreds injured. For years Yanukovych promised Ukrainians that he would sign an agreement with the EU, which would benefit Ukraine’s economy substantially. Protesters felt betrayed that he suddenly and without...

And so like everyone else, I am staring to see the pictures/videos oozing out of the streets on the Ukraine, but forgive me for being totally confused about what the battles are about. Clearly, there are folks really upset about something, but I simply can’t believe the reasons that are given. Let me explain…

Up to 100,000 Ukrainians massed in the capital Kiev on Sunday in defiance of sweeping new laws aimed at stamping out anti-government protests. The rally, the biggest this year in a cycle of pro-Europe protests convulsing the former Soviet republic for the past two months, was spurred by the legislation rushed through parliament last week and which the opposition says will lead to a police state.Significantly raising the stakes in the confrontation withPresident Viktor Yanukovich, opposition leaders announced a plan to gather people's signatures expressing no confidence in his leadership and that of parliament.Denouncing as unconstitutional last Thursday's hurried vote...