Quite a few Ukraine stories on the wires today:
Ukraine Lives Through First Winter Without Russian Gas -- Yatsenyuk
KYIV. Feb 12 (Interfax) - Ukraine will be able to complete the heating season without buying Russian gas, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk has said.
"I would like to tell you that we will live through the winter without Russian gas for the first time in the entire history of Ukraine," the prime minister told diplomats in Kyiv on Friday. He said the Naftogaz reform had made that happen.
"This is a real reform and a real step towards diversification of natural gas supply by Ukraine," Yatsenyuk said.
He thanked the EU, the EBRD, the World Bank and other international partners for the assistance which helped Ukraine achieve "real diversification and energy independence." Ukraine cut gas imports 15.9% (3.1 billion cubic meters) year-on-year in 2015 to 16.4 billion cubic meters.
The amount of Russian gas imported by Ukraine in 2015 stood at 6.1 billion cubic meters or 2.4 times less than in 2014 (14.5 billion cubic meters).
Upon the end of the tripartite negotiations in September, Naftogaz bought from Gazprom (MOEX: GAZP) 2 billion cubic meters of gas in October, and almost 400 million cubic meters in November.
The purchases stopped on November 25, and Ukraine lived on cheaper gas imported from Europe, locally produced gas, and reserves from underground gas storages.
Crimean Tatars Outraged As Russia Charges Four With 'Terrorism'
Simferopol, Feb 12, 2016 (AFP) -- Crimean Tatars, a minority Muslim group opposed to Russian annexation, on Friday condemned a new wave of repressions after Russian security forces raided homes and charged four with terrorist offences.
"A new wave of repressions has started in Crimea against Crimean Tatars," the community's governing body, the Mejlis, said in a statement.
Crimean prosecutors said the Russian FSB security service had detained four on suspicion of organising and taking part in the radical Islamist Hizb ut-Tahrir party.
The lawyer representing the detained men, Emil Kurtbedinov, told AFP on Friday that all four men had already been charged with organising or joining a terrorist group, for which they could face up to 20 years in jail.
Hizb ut-Tahrir (Party of Liberation) seeks to re-establish a Caliphate -- a pan-Islamic state based on Islamic rule harking to the medieval era -- and has been banned in Russia since 2003.
Since annexing Crimea in March 2014, Russia has cracked down on the Tatars, an indigenous ethnic group that makes up about 13 percent of its population, many of whom oppose Moscow's rule of the peninsula.
The FSB raided 12 homes, confiscating computers and other electronic devices, a Tatar community leader, Zair Smedlya, told AFP.
The sweep took place across the peninsula including around the Black Sea resort towns of Yalta and Alushta.
Security forces detained 12 people for questioning, eight of whom were later released, Smedlya said.
The search saw security forces break the windows of one house with sleeping children inside, the Mejlis said.
The Ukrainian foreign ministry on Friday condemned "political repression" against the Crimean Tatars, whom it referred to as Ukrainian citizens, and demanded their immediate release.
Crimea's chief prosecutor Natalya Poklonskaya told pro-Kremlin Kryminform news agency that those detained "are not Tatars, they are a terrorist organisation. We do not divide up people on the basis of their ethnic group."
Those detained included Emir-Usein Kuku, a member of a rights group that searches for Tatars who have gone missing on the peninsula since its annexation, Tatar spokesman Smedlya said.
Also detained was an ethnic Russian who converted to Islam.
And there's also this one from the Russian state news agency TASS
Crimea Welcomes 43,000 Tourists On New Year Holidays
SIMFEROPOL, February 12. /TASS/. Russia's Crimea welcomed during the New Year holidays 43,000 tourists despite of the electricity deficit at
that time, the republic's minister of resorts and tourism, Sergei Strelbitsky, said on Friday.
From November 22, electricity supplies were stooped after an accident at the electricity line from Ukraine.
The local authorities say the damage from that blackout is $4.5 million.
Autonomous electricity generators supplied the energy to 133 of possible 262 hotels, thus only 31% of the rooms were taken. However, the ministry has not received any complaints regarding services provided during the New Year holidays.
"Thank God, the local people and the visiting tourists realize the situation clearly," the minister said. "The very fact that the tourists remained on the peninsula through end of the holiday season proves it was not only leisure for them, but also the support for Crimea, which it needs very much."
Some good news in a week when good news from Ukraine has been thin on the ground:
Today is the first anniversary of the Minsk peace accord. RFE/RL photographer Petr Shelomovskiy has given us this photo gallery of like in Donetsk today:
One year after the signing of the Minsk peace agreement on February 12, intended to put an end to fighting in eastern Ukraine, residents of Donetsk and the surrounding areas have grown accustomed to shortages, checkpoints, and sporadic clashes.
A Year After Minsk Accord, Shaky Truce Is The New Normal In Donetsk
Good morning. We'll start the live blog with this item that our news desk issued overnight:
Biden Urges Poroshenko To Quickly Establish Unified Government
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden has urged Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to quickly reestablish a unified government and carry out reforms sought by the West.
The need to move quickly to quell a political crisis in the wake of the resignation last week of widely respected Ukrainian Economy Minister Aivaras Abromavicius, who cited corruption within the government, was discussed in a phone call between the two leaders on February 11, the White House said.
The conversation came one day after Poroshenko talked with International Monetary Fund (IMF) managing director Christine Lagarde and assured her that he remains committed to economic reform and rooting out corruption despite Abromavicius's charges.
Lagarde had warned that Ukraine's $17.5 billion loan program was at risk unless the government proceeds with reforms linked to the financial aid.
"The vice president urged the governing coalition to quickly establish unity to allow Ukraine to move forward with reforms, in line with the commitments in its IMF program," the White House said.
Biden and Poroshenko also discussed an uptick in violence in eastern Urkaine and "expressed serious concern about the worsening security situation" there, it said.
Based on reporting by AFP and Reuters
That concludes our live-blogging of the Ukraine crisis for Thursday, February 11. Check back here tomorrow for more of our continuing coverage.