Page 15 - bne_newspaper_April_26_2019

Eastern Europe
April 26, 2019 www.intellinews.com I Page 15
Russia eases path to citizenship for Ukraine's Donbas
bne IntelliNews
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a special decree simplifying the procedure for obtaining
a Russian passport for residents of the rebel- controlled Donetsk and Luhansk regions of eastern Ukraine, Reuters reported on April 24.
A team of Ukraine’s president-elect Volodymyr Zelenskiy immediate came out with a strongly worded statement saying that the order “doesn’t bring Donbass closer to a ceasefire” and confirms Russia’s role as an “aggressor state.”
In the run up to Ukrainians presidential elections many feared Zelenskiy, a Russian speaker, would be soft on Moscow.
President Petro Poroshenko said in a separate state- ment that, with this decree, "Russia is torpedoing the peace process in Donbas,” as cited by RFE/RL.
The US embassy in Kyiv posted on Twitter that the decree was "absurd and destabilizing" and reaffirmed "our strong support for Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity."
The Kremlin justified the decree saying its goal is "to protect human and civil rights" and that the move was "based on universal principles and norms of the international law.
Meanwhile, Russian media reported the same day that people who live permanently in certain areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine will take an oath on being granted Russian citizenship, according to Putin's special decree.
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French Total continues Novatek integration with 10% stake in LNG terminals
French energy major Total continues its integration with Russia’s leading privately owned gas major Novatek, and is planning to acquire a 10% stake in the Kamchatka and Murmansk LNG transshipment hubs that Novatek is currently constructing, Total CEO Patrick Pouyanne was quoted as saying by Kommersant daily.
Last month Novatek closed the sale of 10% in its second LNG project Arctic LNG-2 to Total for $2.5bn. Apart from acquiring a 10% stake in Novatek's new project Arctic-2 to be closed by
the end of 2Q19, in 2018 Total upped its stake in Novatek overall to 19.4%.
“We believe that Total was generally expected
to participate in the re-loading hubs, but the development is nonetheless positive for sentiment and provides additional reassurance for potential Arctic LNG-2 partners across the LNG chain,” BCS Global Markets commented on April 19.
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