Poland, Ukraine hail EU ruling curbing Gazprom's Nord Stream access:
By RFE/RL
Gazprom says it is analyzing the legal and commercial consequences of a September 10 court ruling that reduced gas flows via the Opal pipeline, which connects Germany with the Russian state-owned gas company's Nord Stream pipeline, Reuters reports.
The ruling by the EU's top court in Luxembourg reinstated curbs on gas flows through Opal, half-owned by Gazprom, to 35 percent of the capacity of Germany's onshore pipeline extension of Nord Stream 1.
The EU General Court's ruling essentially annulled a European Commission (EC) decision from 2016.
It concluded that the EC had not assessed the impact on Poland's gas-supply security, and therefore breached the EU's "energy solidarity principle" by adopting the decision.
Ukraine and Poland welcomed the decision as a victory that reduces the chances of a gas crisis, particularly in Kyiv, and one that will offer Ukraine leverage in future energy talks with Russia.
"The ruling keeps Poland's and Ukraine's energy security at a high level," said Polish Energy Minister Krzysztof Tchorzewski, whose country challenged the EU's 2016 decision.
Ukraine's state-run Naftogaz oil and gas company called the ruling "a pleasant surprise."
Naftogaz's executive director, Yuriy Vitrenko, said on social media, "I hope that all this is a sign of gradual change in Europe's attitude to Gazprom and Russia's use of gas as an instrument of political influence."
Representatives of the EU, Ukraine, and Russia are scheduled for talks in Brussels on September 19 to discuss the possible extension of Kyiv's gas-transit contract with Russia, which expires on January 1.
They come as Gazprom is pushing to complete the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project by spring 2020, after which it may no longer need Ukraine's pipelines for transit.
Moscow meets a third of Europe's gas needs, much of which flows through Ukraine's Soviet-era pipelines. Fourteen countries receive more than 50 percent of their gas from Russia.
Gazprom had been seeking full access to the Opal pipeline and got 80 percent of its available capacity after the 2016 EC decision.
The September 10 ruling will reduce Gazprom's Nord Stream flows by 12.4 billion cubic meters a year, said PGNiG, Poland's state-run oil and gas company, the country's largest.
The ruling also "improves Ukraine's negotiating position with Russia," PGNiG CEO Piotr Wozniak told Bloomberg.
The EC has two months and 10 days to appeal the court's ruling. (w/Reuters and Bloomberg)
Zelenskiy talks "business" with oligarch Kolomoyskiy:
By RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service
A picture of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was posted on his administration’s Facebook page meeting oligarch and former business associate Ihor Kolomoyskiy on September 10, with a message stating they spoke about "issues of conducting business in Ukraine."
They also focused on the energy industry, the message said, reminding visitors to the page that at a business forum in June, Zelenskiy called on "big business" to invest in infrastructural projects in eastern Ukraine and "help the state resolve social problems."
Zelenskiy, a 41-year-old comedian-turned-politician who has pledged to "break the system" in Ukrainian politics, was elected in April.
Three months later his Servant of the People party took a solid majority of 254 parliamentary seats in the 450-seat legislature, an unprecedented mandate that has set Zelenskiy up to carry out his campaign pledges.
His comedy shows have aired on Kolomoysky's television channel for nearly a decade.
Others seen in the picture include presidential office head Andriy Bohdan, who was Kolomoyskiy's personal lawyer and with whom Zelenskiy flew at least five times starting in January from Kyiv to Tel Aviv, where the oligarch was residing at that time in self-imposed exile.
Also present was Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk, who managed the social-media campaign during Zelenskiy's run for office.
First presidential aide Serhiy Shefir is seen in the picture.
Shefir is a co-founder with Zelenskiy of the Studio Kvartal-95 production company. He is a former director of the studio.
ArcelorMittal's steel mill to move $400 Million out of Ukraine amid probes:
By RFE/RL
Europe's largest steel mill, owned by top investor ArcelorMittal and located in Ukraine, is planning to move $433 million out of the country to pay dividends to its parent company.
In a filing to the National Securities and Stock Market Commission dated September 6, the steel mill, based in Kryviy Rih in southern Ukraine -- President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's hometown -- announced that it will hold an extraordinary shareholders' meeting on October 10 to vote on the payout.
The mill is ultimately owned by Luxembourg-based ArcelorMittal, one of the world's biggest steelmakers and Ukraine's biggest national investor.
The decision comes as the company faces two probes that were started in July after Zelenskiy was elected president. One relates to alleged pollution issues that the company denies and $360 million in unpaid taxes.
During this year's parliamentary election campaign, Zelenskiy accused the mill of polluting his hometown.
The Ukrainian Security Service (SBU), run by Zelenskiy's childhood friend Ivan Bakanov, is investigating the pollution case. Fiscal authorities are probing for back taxes for the period December 2014-March 2019.
The domestic steel plant has called the new tax bill "premature" since it says the fiscal service hasn't given the mill findings of its audit, saying the announcement "doesn't contribute to the improvement of the country's investment attractiveness."
In a news release this month, the mill's chief operating officer, Oleksandr Ivanov, called the pollution case "nonsense," saying that the company is in compliance with regulation and legislation. He furthermore said other plants in Ukraine emit far more pollution.
He said in late July that company officials met with Zelenskiy where they outlined a set of actions to improve emissions at the plant.
SBU inspections of the plant continued in August and took place earlier this month as well, the company said.
Yet in April, the company planned to reinvest its yearly profit back into the plant, following a shareholders' meeting, the usual period when corporations hold them instead of later in the year.
In previous statements, ArcelorMitttal's domestic mill has stated it spent $9 billion over the years since acquiring the plant in 2005 in what is still Ukraine's biggest privatization of a state-owned company.
It paid $350 million last year and $190 million in the first six months of this year in taxes.
In 2018, the mill reported $380 million in earnings. (w/Financial Club)
This ends our live blogging for September 10. Be sure to check back tomorrow for our continuing coverage.
Sentsov plans to "shoot films and live" following release:
By RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service
KYIV -- More than five years after his arrest in Crimea, and just three days after his release from Russian custody as part of a prisoner swap with Ukraine, filmmaker Oleh Sentsov says his plans are simple. "Do the two most wonderful things on this planet: shoot films and live."
Speaking to a large number of journalists in the Ukrainian House in downtown Kyiv on September 10, Sentsov and another freed Ukrainian activist, Oleksandr Kolchenko, expressed thanks to "all who supported us and contributed to our liberation."
The two were released from Russian custody in a prisoner swap between Kyiv and Moscow on September 7 that saw the two countries exchange a total of 70 prisoners in the first major prisoner swap between them since 2017.
Russia took control of the Black Sea peninsula in 2014 and has backed the separatists in the conflict in eastern Ukraine, which has left more than 13,000 people dead over the last five years.
Sentsov, a Crimean native who opposed Russia's 2014 takeover of the Ukrainian peninsula, was arrested by the Moscow-imposed Crimean authorities on May 11, 2014, and charged with planning the fire-bombing of pro-Russian organizations in Crimea.
A Russian court convicted him on multiple terrorism charges on August 25, 2015, and sentenced him to 20 years in a maximum-security prison.
Human rights activists and Western governments repeatedly called on the Russian authorities to release the film director, saying his arrest and trial were politically motivated.
"As for Crimea, I will only go back there in a tank.... My words shouldn't be taken literally," Sentsov said with a wry smile, adding that he was going to push to secure the release of Ukrainians "illegally held in Russia and Donbas," referring to the eastern region where Russian-backed separatist are battling Ukrainian troops.
Imprisoned in Russia's northern Yamalo-Nenets region, Sentsov held a 145-day hunger strike last year, demanding that Russia release 64 fellow Ukrainians he considered political prisoners.
Sentsov called Russian political prisoners in Russian prisons "our brothers," and thanked Ukrainian and foreign journalists for what he called "doing their jobs so that we could be free now."
"Now we have to think about the liberation of our people who remain in custody in Russia and Donbas. We must remember that along with our people there in prisons in Russia there are many Russians who are fighting for themselves, for a free Russia and for our Ukraine. They are our brothers and we must not divide them from us," Sentsov said.
"The situation we have now after Russia attacked Ukraine is an information conflict. And [Russian President Vladimir] Putin's aggression against Ukraine is supported by many in Russia, due to the work of the Russian propaganda. I would like to applaud journalists here who are doing a great job," he said.
Sentsov also said that the prisoner swap "was not unexpected," as there were many years of negotiations on the issue because "the Russian system never accepts its mistakes," or never changes its position regarding arrests.
Still, the swap provides some momentum to bringing the conflict to an end, he said.
Ukrainian "President [Volodymyr Zelenskiy] said that there is a second stage of the prisoner swap and I hope that the more than 100 guys who remain in Russian custody will be released soon. I hope that Zelenskiy knows what he is doing, and he will do everything that is good for our country."
"With the new government [in Ukraine], Russia has a chance to reset its relations with Ukraine. President Zelenskiy has made it clear that he wants to finish this war," Sentsov added, though he expressed doubts that Moscow is eager to finish the conflict.
"No matter how much a wolf tries to disguise as a sheep, it still has its fangs. However, Russia still wants to preserve its presence in the European community and the recent change of the government in Ukraine is a chance for Moscow to improve its ties with Europe. But it is not possible to say that Russia wants to stop the war, to return Crimea to Ukraine and get out of Donbas," he said.
According to Sentsov, he realized while in Russian custody that the majority of Russians are indifferent to the political situation in their country.
Talking about his arrest and imprisonment in Russia, Sentsov said that the terrorism charges against him were fabricated as he openly protested Crimea's annexation by Russia.
"I supported Ukrainian military units in Crimea [during annexation] in terms of their evacuation and the evacuation of their family members. I organized protest actions, such as an auto-march with Ukrainian flags, events near [Ukrainian writer and poet] Taras Shevchenko's monument in Simferopol to demonstrate that there are people in Crimea who are against the annexation. I did everything I could," Sentsov said, adding that he also refused to officially obtain a Russian passport after Moscow said all Crimea residents would become Russian citizens.
Sentsov also said that he brought to Ukraine 15 notebooks with novels, scripts, and scenarios he wrote while in Russian custody.
"I was allowed to write there. I wrote in the night to avoid noise.... On the third day of my hunger strike [in 2018] I felt that I wanted to write about my feelings. There was a risk that they could take all my scripts away, but they did not, as my handwriting was so bad that they were unable to understand what I wrote," he said.
"I wrote a 145-day diary while on hunger strike. They did not take that from me," Sentsov said, adding that with his hunger strike he had "managed to attract the world's attention to all Ukrainian prisoners in Russia."