EU's Sefcovic sees Russia-Ukraine gas deal by year's end:
By RFE/RL
Ukraine and Russia should be able to reach an agreement by the end of 2019 on the transportation of natural gas to the European Union, a top EU official has said.
"If all goes well and if all actors work toward the same goal, I am confident that this process will be successfully completed by the end of this year," European Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic said in Brussels on January 21 after chairing a meeting with Russian and Ukrainian officials.
The talks were attended by Russian Energy Minister Aleksandr Novak, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin, and executives from Ukrainian state energy company Naftogaz and Russian gas giant Gazprom.
Sefcovic said he had proposed a compromise for the sides to work on before the next trilateral meeting scheduled for May.
The EU official also said he expected no problem with supplies of Russian gas via Ukraine to Europe this winter.
Kyiv fears losing revenue once the current 10-year contract expires at the end of 2019, amid tensions with Moscow over its annexation of the Crimea Peninsula in 2014 and its support for separatists in eastern Ukraine.
Sources from the negotiation teams told RFE/RL that Sefcovic floated a proposal for the parties to agree a new 10-year transit contract, with a guaranteed minimum yearly transit volume of 60 billion cubic meters.
Before the meeting, Naftogaz Deputy Chief Executive Yuriy Vitrenko accused Russia of delaying the talks until the Moscow-backed Nord Stream 2 natural-gas pipeline is built under the Baltic Sea.
"Then they will say, 'We are OK without any Ukrainian transits at all'," Vitrenko told Reuters.
Washington has strongly opposed the planned pipeline to bring Russian gas directly to Western Europe, bypassing the existing networks running through Ukraine.
Moscow and Kyiv have clashed about gas since 2005, leading to supply interruptions. (w/Reuters, dpa, and Rikard Jozwiak in Brussels)
At least nine dead after ships catch fire off Crimea:
A fire on two Tanzanian-flagged commercial vessels has killed at least nine sailors off the Crimean Peninsula, Russian authorities say.
"Fourteen people have been rescued. Nine bodies have been retrieved from the water," a spokesman for Russia's Federal Agency of Sea and River Transport said on January 21.
The state maritime agency said the blaze erupted while fuel was being pumped from one vessel to another in the Black Sea near the Kerch Strait.
Russian news agencies reported that the fire spread from one ship to the other, prompting their crews to jump overboard.
The Russian Transport Ministry said there were a total of 31 crew members on the two ships and they included citizens of Turkey and India.
A search for those still missing was under way, authorities said.
The Kerch Strait, which links the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, is a focus of tension between Russia and Ukraine.
In November, Russian security forces fired on, boarded, and then seized three Ukrainian vessels near the narrow channel.
Moscow claims the Ukrainian vessels illegally entered Russian territorial waters near Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula that Russia occupied and took over in 2014.
Ukraine denied the claim.
A Russian court has extended by three months the detention of 24 Ukrainian sailors captured in the incident. They are accused of illegally crossing into Russian territory.
The United States, European Union, and other countries have called for the release of the sailors. (AP, Reuters, TASS)