*QUESTION: *[Through Interpreter]. Going back to what former U.S. Ambassador Steven Pifer said about the idea of a blacklist of Ukrainian officials, under what conditions would Washington be ready to start freezing assets of businessmen close to the current administration and blacklisting Ukrainian senior officials from traveling to the Western countries, the United States - or is such scenario impossible in principle? *ASSISTANT SECRETARY GORDON: *Let me tell you how we're dealing with...

Leaders of the European Union do not see any sense in meeting with President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych due to the political process. Head of the EU Delegation to Ukraine Jose Manuel Pinto Teixeira said this in an interview to “LIGABusinessInform”. Answering the question that in spite of efforts of Foreign Minister of Ukraine Konstyantyn Hryshchenko and Chief of Staff of the Presidential Administration of Ukraine Serhiy Lyovochkin, no leader of the EU met (in Davos – UNIAN) with President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych, J. Teixeira noted: “I could explain it by...

Ukraine reduced imports of Russian natural gas Saturday and increased usage of gas coming from its underground gas storage facilities, helping European consumers get more Russian gas amid extremely cold weather. The move comes a day after Naftogaz offered help to Gazprom of Russia in meeting the demand for gas in Europe after the Russian gas company faced problems with gas deliveries. Ukraine, which controls massive underground gas storage facilities on the border with the EU, can switch between using Russian gas and gas stored in underground storage facilities without difficulties. “Naftogaz has...

Russia’s state-controlled Gazprom natural gas giant acknowledged for the first time Saturday that it had briefly reduced gas supplies to Europe amid a spell of extreme cold. Gazprom deputy chief Andrey Kruglov reported to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin that the cuts lasted for several days and reached up to 10 percent, but supplies are currently back to normal. Officials in Austria and France, however, have reported cuts of as much as 30 percent, and Italy said supplies were down by 24 percent. Russia’s state-controlled Gazprom natural gas giant acknowledged for the first time Saturday that it had briefly reduced gas supplies to Europe amid a spell of extreme cold...

The Regionnaires’ inability to understand just what freedom is and how it works was amply on display in the last few weeks. With something that elementary beyond their grasp, it’s small wonder that President Yanukovych and his pals invariably elicit eye-rolling, groans, and grins when they pontificate about such things as free speech and civil society. Back in mid-January, Ihor Huzhva, editor of the pro-regime newspaper Segodnya, was fired by the paper’s supervisory council, which reports to the owner, Ukraine’s richest man and a lapsed Regionnaire MP, Rinat Akhmetov. The incident was undeservedly underreported, even though Huzhva made the following sensational claims in an interview: As far as I know, the question of my firing was decided after I refused to submit to censorship in the paper. This was last summer. That’s when all my problems began. When we initiated our action [a planned strike], I knew what...

The foreign ministry's attempt at positively spinning a recent press freedom report has backfired. Everything is relative, but it was still a cynical stretch for the good people of Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry to claim that press freedom in the nation is improving. With Ukraine losing its standing on all diplomatic fronts, West and East, it’s understandable that the Foreign Ministry is so desperate for good news that officials tried to manufacture some favorable publicity through a Jan. 27 press release. It backfired. Headlined “Ukraine seen as improving in press freedom rankings,” the ministry cites the most recent World Press Freedom Index by the international free-speech watchdog, Reporters Without Frontiers. Correctly, the ministry notes that...

The daughter of former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko says her mother is being ill-treated in prison, but she remains strong in spirit. Eugenia Tymoshenko testified Wednesday in Washington before a U.S. Senate subcommittee on European affairs at a hearing on Ukraine. She said that during visits to her mother in prison she has to lift her from the bed and help her walk. Eugenia Tymoshenko said authorities are using sleep deprivation and intimidation to try to break her mother. “This includes a 24-hour lit room and 24-hour video surveillance. Lately...

In testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Steven Pifer outlines the democratic regression that has taken place within Ukraine during the two years of President Yanukovych’s tenure in office and the negative impact that has had on Ukraine’s relations with Europe and the United States. Pifer concludes that U.S. policy, in coordination with that of the European Union, should work to crystallize in Mr. Yanukovych’s mind a choice: he can have a more authoritarian political system, more difficult relations with the West, and a greatly weakened hand in dealing with Russia, or he can return to a more democratic approach and have a stronger relationship with the West and a balanced foreign policy...

A eurozone recession this year appears pretty certain, but its possible impact on the volatile economy of Ukraine remains very unclear. A smallish swing in the west tends to trigger much larger shifts on the Dniepr river. Still fresh in memory is the whopping 15 per cent GDP contraction experienced during the 2009 global recession. The country remains deeply vulnerable to global shocks – not least those triggered by the eurozone – due to its dependence of on commodity exports, starting with steel. If the recession in the eurozone, which accounts for about a third of Ukraine’s trade, is limited, another dramatic fall in GDP in Ukraine is not expected. But if there is a new round of financial shocks, economists fear the worst...

The Foreign Ministry of Ukraine has criticized the Ukrainian opposition, claiming that it is attempting to make Europe introduce sanctions on Ukraine. "Sanctions against officials, and not against the whole of Ukraine, do not exist indeed, because the statutory documents of the Council of Europe envisage only two kinds of sanctions: either the whole delegation, including the opposition, is deprived of the right to vote, or the state is expelled from the Council of Europe," Director of the Information Policy Department of the Foreign Ministry Oleh Voloshyn has said during a roundtable entitled "After Davos: Prospects of Ukraine's Foreign Policy and Energy Security" in Kyiv on Tuesday. He added that...