Viktor Yanukovich News

Ukraine is refitting and expanding its naval fleet, including repairing its flagship, the frigate "Hetman Sahaydachnyy", to counter a Russian military build-up in the annexed territory of Crimea, the commander of the Ukrainian navy says. The upgrade will be helped by $30 million worth of U.S. aid, part of a $500 million package from Washington for the Ukrainian military which Kiev expects to receive next year. "Step by step we will rebuild our fleet from the beginning," Vice Admiral Ihor Voronchenko told Reuters in an interview. Ukraine lost two-thirds of its fleet, which had been mostly based in Sevastopol, when Russia seized Crimea from Kiev in 2014. Since then it has fought Russian-backed separatists in the Donbass region in a war that has killed nearly 10,000 people.

Europe's Energy Commissioner said on Monday Ukraine and Russia had made further progress in a dispute over gas prices and his proposal that Ukraine to pay $2 billion of back debt by Thursday could pave the way for further talks on Friday. Speaking after three-way talks with Russia's and Ukraine's energy ministers, Guenther Oettinger said the two governments would study his proposal that Ukraine pay Russia $2 billion by Thursday and a further $500 million by June 7. Oettinger, acting as a mediator in the capital of his home country Germany, said if the governments agreed to the deal, further talks about the gas price from April could then be held from Friday. "We've achieved progress but we didn't achieve a breakthrough," Oettinger told reporters at a news conference in Berlin.

Wang Jing, the enigmatic businessman behind Nicaragua's $50 billion Interoceanic Grand Canal, shrugs off scepticism about how a little-known entrepreneur can be driving a huge transcontinental project, insisting he's not an agent of the Beijing government. "I know you don't believe me," said Wang, who reckons that he's forked-out about $100 million in canal preparation work, and is burning as much as $10 million a month on the project. "You believe there are people from the Chinese government in the background providing support. High-ranking Chinese officials including President Xi Jinping, Premier Li Keqiang and former leaders Jiang Zemin and Wen Jiabao have all visited the state-connected wireless communication technologies company Wang took control of four years ago.

Slovakia and Ukraine have reached an agreement on opening up limited capacity for reverse flow of natural gas from central Europe to Ukraine and will sign the deal on Monday, the Slovak Economy Ministry said on Saturday. Ukraine is trying to secure alternative supplies to those from Russia's Gazprom since Russia annexed Crimea last month and Gazprom nearly doubled prices for its gas to levels Ukraine is refusing to pay. Russia's seizure of Crimea from Ukraine has set off the most serious East-West rift since the end of the Cold War, resulting in EU and U.S. sanctions and raising the threat of interruption of gas supplies from Russia to Europe.

At least three people were killed in a gunfight in the early hours of Sunday near a Ukrainian city controlled by pro-Russian separatists, shaking an already fragile international accord that was designed to avert a wider conflict. The incident triggered a war of words between Moscow and Ukraine's Western-backed government, with each questioning the other's compliance with the agreement, brokered last week in Geneva, to end a crisis that has made Russia's ties with the West more fraught than at any time since the Cold War. The separatists said armed men from Ukraine's Right Sector nationalist group had attacked them. The Right Sector denied any role, saying Russian special forces were behind the clash.

A mediator from Europe's OSCE security body headed to eastern Ukraine on Saturday seeking the surrender of pro-Russian separatists as the Kiev government declared an Easter truce following a peace accord with Moscow. Gunmen occupying public buildings in Donetsk and other Russian-speaking border towns refuse to recognise an accord in Geneva on Thursday by which Russia, Ukraine and Kiev's U.S. and EU allies agreed that the OSCE should oversee the disarmament of militants and the evacuation of occupied facilities and streets. The coming days may determine whether unrest following the overthrow ofUkraine's pro-Moscow president can be contained. Russia, which annexed Crimea last month in the worst East-West crisis since the Cold War, denies running the separatists or planning to invade.

A day after an international deal in Geneva to defuse the East-West crisis in Ukraine, pro-Russian separatists vowed not to end their occupation of public buildings and Washington threatened further sanctions on Moscow if the stalemate continued. Leaders of gunmen who have taken over city halls and other sites in and around Donetsk this month in pursuit of demands for a Crimea-style referendum on union with Russia rejected the agreement struck in Geneva by Ukraine, Russia, theUnited States and European Union and demanded on Friday that the leaders of the Kiev uprising must first quit their own government offices. Moscow renewed its insistence that it has no control over the "little green men" who…

Ukrainian forces launched a "special operation" on Tuesday against separatist militia in the Russian-speaking East, authorities said, although aside from a landing by airborne troops the action was limited. Soldiers disembarked from two helicopters at an airfield at Kramatorsk, where reporters earlier heard gunfire that seemed to prevent an air force plane from landing. The troops withdrew into barracks after local civilians manning a barricade gave them a hostile reception when they tried to leave the compound. In Kiev, acting President Oleksander Turchinov declared a much-needed victory over pro-Russian rebels by saying the air base had been "liberated." But there was no sign of militants.

Moscow. weapons. forces of Ukraine," Turchinov said in an address to the nation. months of pro-Western protests, for being behind the rash of rebellions across Russian-speaking towns in eastern Ukraine. "We will not allow Russia to repeat the Crimean scenario in the eastern regions of Ukraine," Turchinov said. in Ukraine's government under control. "It is now the West's responsibility to prevent civil war in Ukraine," the ministry said in a statement. A United Nations Security Council diplomat told Reuters on condition of anonymity that the council would meet at 8 p.m. GMT) in New York at Russia's request. Another diplomat said negotiations were under way on Ukraine's participation. bore "the telltale signs of Moscow's involvement". the table, and there's a lot in between," she added.

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 Ukraine's Crimea region, was unacceptable and warned he expected Russia to step up pressure by limiting supplies to Ukraine.

Ukraine is in emergency talks with European neighbours on the possibility of importing natural gas from the West, following "political" rises in the price it pays for Russian gas, Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk said on Friday. The urgency of securing affordable supplies for Ukraine's struggling economy has grown since Moscow raised its discounted gas tariff for Kiev twice this week, almost doubling it in three days. Relations between Ukraine and Russia have turned hostile since popular protests in Kiev ousted pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovich in February, after which Russia seized Ukraine's Crimea region and formally annexed it last month. The dispute has widened into the biggest stand-off between Russia and the West since the end of the Cold War.

Ukrainian plans for expanding Black Sea natural gas output have been thrown into doubt by Russia's seizure of Crimea, a region linked to most of Ukraine's offshore developments. Past price disputes between Russia and Ukraine have led to the Russians cutting off supply, prompting Kiev to spur development of its own resources including onshore shale gas and Black Sea fields. Ukraine failed to pay Russian gas company Gazprom $440 million by a deadline on Friday, sparking fresh concerns Gazprom could switch off supplies like it did in 2009. Ukraine's Black Sea push has attracted energy majors as investors, including Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell , ENI and OMV. Promising developments include the Odessa gas field where plans call for output of more than a billion cubic metres of gas by 2015.

Reuters - European physical coal prices rose on Monday along with gains in gas, power and crude oil markets across the region, reflecting escalating tensions between Russia and Ukraine. Cargos for delivery in April to the ports of Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Antwerp (ARA) were trading at $74.25 a tonne at 1720 GMT, up $0.25 from the previous settlement. Physical cargos for May delivery jumped $0.60 to $74.40 per metric ton. In the futures market, API2 coal contracts for delivery in 2015 edged up $1.49 to $82.10 a metric ton. Commodity prices rose on fears that a standoff between Russia and Ukraine could disrupt the shipment of gas from Europe's biggest supplier.

Moscow stocks fall 10 pct, rouble down 2.5 pct over war jitters. Ukraine border guards say build-up of Russian armoured vehicles near Crimea. EU ministers meet but no immediate sanctions expected. Russia took a financial hit over its military intervention in neighbouring Ukraine, with its markets and currency plunging on Monday as President Vladimir Putin's forces tightened their grip on the Russian-speaking Crimea region. The Moscow stock market fell by 10 percent and the central bank spent $10 billion of its reserves to prop up the rouble as investors took fright at escalating tensions with the West over the former Soviet republic.