(Russia Matters – russiamatters.org) 3 Things to Know In the past month, Russian forces have gained 16 square miles of Ukrainian territory, while Ukraine gained 7 square miles, according to calculations by Katherine Davidson, associate of the Belfer Russia-Ukraine War Task Force.1Yet, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has this week denied his top general Valery Zaluzhny’s recent claim that the war has reached […]
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“The fight for the battered city of Avdiivka has emerged this fall as the fiercest battle of the war. Waves of Russian assaults have not broken through so far.” “… [T]wo [city] landmarks have been the focus of furious fighting since Oct. 10 as thousands of Russian troops began a major new offensive in eastern Ukraine to seize [long-coveted] Avdiivka […]
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“Beijing and Moscow sense an opportunity in the face of fading U.S. influence and Covid fallout.” “China’s leading diplomat [Yang Jiechi, head of China’s central committee for foreign affairs,] will travel to Russia … for security talks, the latest sign of deepening [Sino-Russian] ties …. Xi Jinping and … Putin … [recently had a] video-link launch of a nuclear energy […]
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(Interfax – December 9, 2015) Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered that the government resume coal supplies to Ukraine in response to Kiev resuming electricity flow to Crimea. “They [Ukraine] might only have gotten only one line up and running, but it’s still one line [of power transmission]. It is necessary to resume coal supplies,” Putin said at a meeting […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Graham Stack in Kyiv – September 25, 2015) Ukraine “should provide for transparency in coal purchases in the anti-terrorist zone [rebel-territories in East Ukraine] and abroad,” US ambassador to Kyiv Geoffrey Pyatt has warned amid growing attention to the shadowy lucrative trading that continues across the front line of the armed conflict. Pyatt, quoted […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.ru – Nick Kochan in London – February 5, 2015) As winter grips the UK, a group of Russian coal companies with leaders closely linked to President Vladimir Putin are enabling British power companies to keep the country’s lights on – a precarious position as the sanctions rhetoric rises once again. Three Russian firms, SUEK, KRU […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – bne IntelliNews – December 5, 2014) Kyiv has started talks with Russia as well as with Russian-backed rebels in East Ukraine in order to source electric power and coal, as Ukraine’s national grid faces a critical shortage of fuel, Ukraine’s new energy minister Volodymyr Demchyshyn said on December 4. Demchyshyn said that Ukraine is […]
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WASHINGTON, October 14 (RIA Novosti) – Ukraine is not only facing a gas crisis this coming winter, but also a possible overall energy crisis due to disruptions in coal mining and transportation facilities, said Tatiana Mitrova, head of the Oil and Gas Department at the Russian Academy of Sciences Energy Research Institute (ERI RAS). “[It is] not just a potential […]
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(Oilprice.com – Robert Bensh – August 18, 2014) Ukraine’s next crisis will be a devastatingly economic one, as violent conflict destroys critical infrastructure in the east and brings key industry to a halt, furthering weakening the energy sector by crippling coal-based electricity production. The Ukrainian military’s showdown with separatists in the industrial east has forced coal mines to severely cut […]
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