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Oleksiy Danilov, Secretary of Ukraine's National Security and Defence Council, speaks during an interview with Reuters in Kyiv, Ukraine April 7, 2021. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko

KYIV, Oct 22 (Reuters) - Ukraine is ready to increase its gas transit to Europe by 55 bcm and is also ready to meet a request to pump more gas to Moldova to plug shortfalls there, Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of the security and defence council, told a briefing on Friday.

Danilov did not clarify how Ukraine might increase its gas transit or where the gas would come from, but said the government had been ordered to prepare such an offer to European countries. Kyiv has bitterly opposed Russia's new Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which bypasses Ukraine as a transit route.

"Today we have a contract with Russia for 40 billion cubic meters of gas, but today we can additionally offer our European friends an additional volume of 55 billion cubic meters of gas. This decision was made today," Danilov said.

Reporting by Natalia Zinets; Writing by Matthias Williams;Editing by Louise Heavens

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Ukraine offers to increase gas transit to Europe - Reuters

The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted the presidential bill On Ukraine's Accession to the Convention on the European Forest Institute (EFI Convention).

According to an Ukrinform correspondent, 278 MPs voted for relevant ratification resolution No.0094 at an extraordinary meeting of the parliament on October 21.

The purpose of the document is to promote the mobilization of research potential and the effective grouping of resources of many European countries (including Ukraine) in the field of forest research and advanced methods and technologies of forest management.

"Ukraine's acceding to the Convention on the European Forest Institute will be useful for our country, given the opportunity to influence the policy and work of the organization," an explanatory note to the document says.

It is noted that acceding to the Convention does not entail any budgetary costs.

"Membership in the organization is free of charge. Voluntary contributions are provided by member countries only when they consider it necessary," Article 10 of the EFI Convention says.

The European Forest Institute isan international organization, established by European States for scientific and applied research in the field of forest use and forest management. According to the EFI Convention, individual countries can be members of the organization. Scientific institutions of a state can acquire the status of associate (European organizations) or affiliated (organizations outside Europe) member organizations.

Almost 30 European countries have already acceded to the Convention, and 115 organizations from 36 countries have the status of associate or affiliated members. Among them, two scientific institutions are from Ukraine.

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Ukraine accedes to Convention on European Forest Institute - Ukrinform. Ukraine and world news

The number of credit unions in Ukraine reached 289 as of the beginning of October 2021, according to Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) Kyrylo Shevchenko.

"As of the beginning of October, there were 289 credit unions in Ukraine. The number of their members is about 400,000, and the population coverage index by services of these financial institutions was 1.45% last year," Shevchenko wrote on Facebook, Ukrinform reports.

At the same time he noted that, unfortunately, there are many problems in this market in Ukraine.

"The National Bank is working to resolve every issue that slows down the development of the industry. In particular, together with the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, the regulator has developed the relevant bill On Credit Unions (5125). After parliamentarians approve it at second reading, significant changes will begin on the market, Shevchenko noted.

As Ukrinform reported, on July 1, 2020, the National Bank became a regulator of the nonbank financial services market.

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Almost 300 credit unions operating in Ukraine NBU governor - Ukrinform. Ukraine and world news

Then-US Secretary of State John Kerry, (right) Victoria Nuland, Moscow, December 2015 (Source: AP)

According to Kremlin-connected analyst Fedor Lukyanov, the Joseph Biden administration had to work hard with Moscow to make Under Secretary Victoria Nulands visit possible. The United States seeks a mutually accepted modus vivendi with Russia regarding the Donbas problem; and Bidens team is prepared to exert its influence on Ukraine to cooperate toward that goal. Moscow would therefore expect Washington to adjust Ukraines profile downward in the US policy (Bfm.ru, October 10; Global Affairs, October 11).

Nulands revisiting of the 2015 Minsk agreement (see Part One) comes as a surprise. One month ago, President Biden and the other officials receiving Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Washington never mentioned the Minsk agreements or a special status for Donbas. The White House thereby deferred to the Ukrainian delegation, and it seemed that those controversial words had been dropped for good (see EDM, September 7, 9).

For all its satisfaction with the talks on Ukraine, Moscow apparently stalled on proposals that Nuland brought up unrelated to Ukraine (cyber-hacking, embassy personnel parity, visa reciprocity). Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov warned that a US military presence in Central Asia [to monitor Taliban-ruled Afghanistan] is unacceptable in any form and that Russia will be watching, lest Australia violate the treaty on nuclear non-proliferation after it joins the Australian-British-US (AUKUS) fleet of nuclear-powered submarines (TASS, October 13).

No information, official or unofficial, has surfaced in Kyiv regarding Nulands Moscow visit on the Biden administrations behalf. Whether the visit, directly affecting Ukraine, was discussed with the Ukrainian authorities is not known either. The Ukrainian Presidential Office has only reported one telephone call with Nuland: on October 7, Presidential Office Chief Andriy Yermak and Nuland discussed the security situation around Ukraine, the [deadlocked] Normandy negotiations (Russia, Germany, France, Ukraine), and the importance of strengthening the role of the United States in the processes of peaceful resolution of the conflict (Ukrinform, October 7).

Nuland has re-entered a scene that was hers in 20152016 as Assistant Secretary of State in the Barack Obama administration. She visited Kyiv fairly regularly during that period, several times with thenSecretary of State John Kerry and several times on her own. Nuland tried hard to persuade then-president Petro Poroshenko and the Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian parliament) to start fulfilling the 2015 Minsk agreements political clauses, but she did not progress too far in that effort. From May 2015 until almost the end of the Obama administration in the fall of 2016 Nuland operated the US side of a bilateral channel of negotiation with Vladislav Surkov (Kozaks predecessor on Ukrainian affairs in Russias presidential administration). Nuland and Surkov held several meetings, of which three became known, and did not achieve results either. No US negotiator is involved at present, whether in an existing group format or as a special envoy. Kyiv has been pleading for the United States to join the Normandy format or for a U.S. negotiator to mediate between Ukraine and Russia or, alternatively, interact bilaterally with a Russian counterpart.

Some speculation exists in Ukraine that the United States may before long decide to enter the negotiations on the Donbas conflict, not in the Normandy format but on a bilateral basis with Russia. In this view, the US and Russia could stabilize the situation in short order, ensure de-escalation and stabilization and, on that basis, introduce a political solution. In that case, the sidelining of the Donbas problem could take the legal-political form of a special status as per the Minsk agreement. Such a scenario would, however, only conserve a precarious, insecure situation.

It is a common observation that the Biden administration views its relations with Russia in part through the prism of the US-China contest. To focus attention and resources on that contest, the administration calls for stable and predictable relations with Russia. Concurrently, it seeks Russias cooperation on problems that affect the US and various allies considerably more than they affect Russiae.g., Iranian and North Korean nuclear and missile proliferation or turmoil in parts of the Middle East.

Major challenges and threats, however, originate for the most part in Russia itself: disinformation operations, extortionist cyber-hacking, instrumentalized energy dependencies, dangerous and threatening military exercises, ongoing warfare in Ukraine, seizures of territory from neighboring countries, military operations in the Middle East and Africa, militarization of the Arctic, Russias hand in Venezuelas collapse. Nevertheless, the Biden administration apparently hopes for Russia to cooperate with US priorities that Russia does not necessarily or fully sharee.g., a new strategic arms treaty and ambitious climate goals.

The official phrase that We seek stable, predictable relations with Russia, launched at the time of Joseph Biden and Vladimir Putins June 2021 summit in Geneva, and heavily used as a talking point by state officials since then, is unfit for purpose. This phrase asks Russia, in effect, to voluntarily give up its strategic and tactical competitive advantages. Asking Russia to give up these amounts almost to supplication. Practically, it conveys a plea that one cannot cope with Russias operational tempo. Russia looks poised to go on thriving on instability and unpredictability.

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The Kremlin Is Pleased After Kozak-Nuland Talks on Ukraine (Part Two) - Jamestown - The Jamestown Foundation

HORLIVKA, Ukraine/KYIV, Oct 18 (Reuters) - Russian-backed separatists on Monday ended their blockade of a hotel housing international conflict monitors in eastern Ukraine, an incident sparked by the capture of an officer by Ukrainian armed forces last week.

The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) said on Sunday its monitors were unable to leave their patrol base in a hotel in the separatist-controlled town of Horlivka while the separatists demanded the officer's release.

The OSCE, Europe's main security watchdog, said the base's vehicle entrance had been locked with a chain and padlock and that they had seen tents pitched outside the hotel.

It was one of several incidents reported by the OSCE of its monitors being prevented from carrying out their work since the officer's capture.

On Monday afternoon a Reuters reporter witnessed several protesters who had stood outside the hotel in Horlivka leaving after what they said were talks with the OSCE monitors.

"We agreed today that the protesters unlock the building and give the OSCE members a chance to continue their duties," said one of the negotiators, Natalya Kruzhilina.

Protesters opened the gate of a parking lot where two OSCE cars were parked and dismantled their tents.

However, the OSCE's Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine (SMM) said in an emailed statement that its monitors were still not able to deploy from their hotel in the city of Donetsk.

The OSCE had suspended the monitoring mission by its team in Donetsk after protesters gathered and pitched tents over the issue of the captured officer. read more

"As a result of a protest in front of the hotel where Mission members live in Donetsk city, and in line with its safety and security procedures, the SMM does not deploy patrols from the Donetsk Team and its Hub in the same city," it said.

"The patrolling from the other SMM locations continues as normal. We call upon the sides to remove all impediments to the SMM's freedom of movement."

The SMM has been deployed in eastern Ukraine since 2014 with the aim of arranging dialogue between Kyiv's forces and the separatists amid a conflict that Ukraine says has so far claimed about 14,000 lives.

"HOSTAGES"

The Ukrainian government had described the OSCE monitors as "hostages" and in a statement called on the international community to investigate what it said was another attempt to undermine the monitoring mission's ability to operate.

"The detention of international observers by armed individuals is a sign of international terrorism," the Ukrainian delegation to the peace talks said.

The foreign minister of the Russia-backed self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, Natalya Nikonorova, said the OSCE mission in Donetsk was safe and its monitors had not asked to leave the building so far.

The people outside the hotel were unarmed, Nikonorova said. "There are no acts of violence... People express their resentment and, by the way, we understand them."

The separatists say the officer, Andrei Kosyak, was captured by the Ukrainian military near the front line last Wednesday while he was helping to oversee the ceasefire.

The Ukrainian defence ministry said Kosyak was a Russian citizen and belonged to a group of Russian servicemen who had carried out an undercover reconnaissance mission.

On Sunday, the SMM also said three of its patrol vehicles were prevented from travelling from government to separatist-controlled areas until Kosyak was freed.

The conflict dates back to 2014, when Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine after mass street protests that ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich, a Kremlin ally.

Fighting then erupted in eastern Ukraine between Kyiv's forces and Russian-backed separatists. Moscow rejects Kyiv's accusations that it has deliberately fomented the conflict and that it has forces in eastern Ukraine.

Reporting by Pavel Polityuk and Margaryta Chornokondratenko in Kyiv, Alexander Ermochenko in Horlivka and Maria Tsvetkova in Moscow;Editing by Gareth Jones, Matthias Williams, William Maclean

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Separatists end blockade of hotel housing conflict monitors in eastern Ukraine - Reuters