Russian Federation arrests retired officer accused of spying for Ukraine

Russia and the European Commission have agreed to a trilateral meeting with Ukraine on gas, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said following negotiations with European Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic on Friday in Moscow.

Kiev is also reportedly concerned about Donald Trump’s praise of Russian President Vladimir Putin during the U.S. presidential campaign.

According to the Minister, at the meeting the parties plan to discuss additional volumes of gas supplies to Ukraine for the autumn and winter period with the existing contracts.

The February 2015 Minsk accord was meant to bring an end to the conflict in eastern Ukraine between government forces and pro-Kremlin rebels but low-level fighting continues.

The West has imposed sanctions on Putin’s Russian Federation over accusations that it continues to support Ukranian-based rebels in a conflict which has claimed 10,000 lives in the past two-and-a-half years, a charge the Kremlin denies.

He pointed out that the gas price set by Russia’s Gazprom company for Ukraine is by $15-30 lower than on European spot markets, therefore, it is more expedient for Kyiv to buy gas from Russian Federation.

Relations between the ex-Soviet neighbors have been at freezing point following Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and support for a pro-Russia insurgency in eastern Ukraine.

The Federal Security Service (FSB) said Thursday that the retired captain, who had been arrested in the port city of Sevastopol a day earlier, was accused of collecting information for Ukraine while working on Russia’s Black Sea naval fleet in the area.

A few days ago, Novak commented to BNR in Moscow that there are risks related to the transit of gas via Ukraine.

High on the agenda is an European Union proposal to lift visa requirements for Ukrainian citizens.

Poroshenko said that Ukraine still had bipartisan support in Washington, while European Council President Donald Tusk said that his post-election conversation about Ukraine with Trump was “at least promising” compared with the president-elect’s campaign rhetoric.

“Europe’s security is in danger”, he added and opined that Russia’s involvement in the Ukraine crisis is now threatening to turn into a “new armament spiral”.

“This new funding is evidence of the EU’s continued support to the Ukrainian reform process and to fundamental, sustained change to the way the country is governed”, European Union neighbourhood policy commissioner Johannes Hahn said in the statement.