The crisis in Ukraine and around Ukraine is the key problem of security on the European continent, OSCE Chairperson-in-Office and Slovakia’s Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajčák said in an interview for the Faces of Peace project.
“The number of casualties we have seen in eastern Ukraine in the past five years is higher than anything we have seen elsewhere in Europe this century,” he said.
Lajčák said the OSCE’s Special Monitoring Mission (SMM), which is made up of more than 1,300 members, has done extremely important work since it was deployed in Ukraine during the spring of 2014.
“Our monitors are in the field observing and reporting on ceasefire violations, monitoring the latest developments and the hardship faced by people,” he said.
Lajčák evaluated the current situation in eastern Ukraine, noting that the ceasefire agreement starting on July 21, 2019, was a positive development leading to a significant decrease in the number of casualties among the civilian population and ceasefire violations.
“Nevertheless, unfortunately recently (As at October 11, 2019) there were days when there were more ceasefire violations than before recommitment,” he said.
Lajčák focused attention on the fact that “positive dynamics between Russia and Ukraine led to the exchange of prisoners” and noted important steps in taken under the aegis of the Trilateral Contact Group on regulating the situation in Donbas, where the sides agreed to the process of withdrawing forces and the so-called Steinmeier Formula. He also noted repair work done to help people crossing the bridge in Stanytsia Luhanska.
Lajčák expressed the hope that there would soon be a summit of Normandy Four leaders (Ukraine, Germany, France and Russia).
“There have been very good discussions within the Normandy Format that will, I hope, lead to a long-awaited Summit of the Normandy Four leaders,” he said.
Slovakia has had the rotating chairmanship of the OSCE since January 1, 2019, when Lajčák became Chairperson-in-Office. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko has invited him to jointly visit Stanytsia Luhanska and inspect infrastructure repairs there.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said that Ukraine and Slovakia would do their best for ensuring stable supplies of gas to Europe.
“Ukraine and Slovakia are reliable gas transit countries, and we will make every effort to ensure uninterrupted gas supplies to the European market,” he said at a briefing in Kyiv on Monday after meeting with Slovak President Zuzana Čaputová.
The State Aviation Service of Ukraine suspended the Air Operator’s Certificate No.UK 046 of Europe Air Kyiv Airline from 00:00 UTC (03:00 Kyiv time) on July 27, 2019.
The decision was taken by the permanent Commission on certification of operators, organizations for the maintenance and continuing airworthiness, designers and manufacturers of aircraft, schools for pilot training in Ukraine, flight and technical personnel of the State Aviation Service, as the regulator’s press service reported.
According to the State Register of Aircraft of Ukraine, Europe Air operates five freight IL-76 TD planes, which were produced in 1900-1992 and belong to Infinite Seal Inc.
The company’s airport is based in Kryvyi Rih, however, the flights are mainly served from the airport in Sharjah (United Arab Emirates) to the states of Africa, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Turkey, Kazakhstan, Bulgaria, Georgia and Lithuania, the company says on its website.
Revenue of Europe Air was UAH 2.2 million, a net profit – UAH 0.26 million in 2017.
DTEK intends to begin importing electricity from Europe within the Burshtyn Energy Island in July 2019, according to the Facebook page of D.TRADING.
“Our company also plans to start importing electricity as early as July with the further active development of this direction of business in the coming months,” Dmytro Maliar, the director for the D.TRADING energy portfolio management, said.
According to him, imports in the new market will allow increasing the level of competition.
Earlier, on July 1, ERU Trading LLC announced the implementation of test imports of electricity from Slovakia and Hungary within the Burshtyn Energy Island.
D.TRADING conducts wholesale trade in electricity, natural gas and coal in the domestic and foreign energy markets.
For the first time, Ukraine has been included in the world rating pf operating oil and gas drilling rigs by Baker Hughes GE Rig Coun, in which it took the leading position in Europe in terms of the number of machines involved in drilling.
According to the press service of the Association of Gas Producers of Ukraine, which initiated including Ukraine in this rating, in May 186 drilling rigs operated in Europe (44 offshore platforms), almost half of which (84) worked in Ukraine.
Turkey (20 working machines) and the United Kingdom (16) follow Ukraine in the ranking, the association said.
“Over the past three years, Ukraine has carried out important reforms in domestic gas production, which consisted in improving the regulatory field and modernizing the relevant legislation. These changes are already noticed not only by Ukrainian but also by foreign investors – our country is becoming more attractive for them. Including Ukraine in the BHGE Rig Count index is extremely important because it demonstrates revival in the domestic market and serves as a good indicator for the leading gas producing and service companies to come to Ukraine,” executive director of the association Roman Opimakh said.
Ukraine has large resource potential and can become European Texas, U.S. Energy Secretary has said. Perry made the remarks during a meeting with representatives of the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine and the U.S.-Ukraine Business Council.
“Ukraine is unique in the sense of where it finds itself in the world at this particular point in time. Not only can they be a major supplier from the standpoint of bringing LNG in through Poland in particular, and then supplying Europe from there. But the potential for exploration and production in Ukraine – this is quite a statement from me, but Ukraine would be the Texas of Europe. The formations that are here — the potential for the development of those is, I think it’s staggering. I remind people that a decade ago, they told us that we had found all the fuel — the fossil fuels — in the world. They called it peak oil, remember? The guy traveled the country giving a speech about peak oil. And those resources were always there. But innovation and technology allowed us to be able to access them. And today the United States is the number-one oil and gas producing country in the world. And that’s a stunning turnaround,” said Perry, who was Texas Governor from 2000 to 2015.
The U.S. Energy Secretary added that many U.S. companies are interested in cooperation with Ukraine.
