Ukraine to import gas from Greece, Türkiye upbeat on conflict ending

Ukraine has signed a deal that enables them to import gas from Greece until March 2026 to help secure its energy supply for the winter, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Sunday.

Zelenkyy was in Athens to meet with Greek President Konstantinos Tasoulas and Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis where they agreed Kyiv can import US-supplied liquefied natural gas from next month.

The deal between Greek national gas company DEPA Commercial and Ukraine's Naftogaz is viewed as "an essential contribution to regional security and energy resilience" as Kyiv seeks to meet its winter fuel needs while fending off Russia's offensive. 

Prime Minister Mitsotakis said Greece was "the natural gateway for American liquefied natural gas to replace Russian gas in the region."

Zelenskyy said the agreement with Greece would be "another gas supply route to secure imports for the winter as much as possible." 

Power protection

He said Kyiv had allocated funds for gas imports from European partners and banks under European Commission guarantees, as well as from Ukrainian banks, needed to "compensate for the losses in Ukrainian production caused by Russian strikes."

Moscow has stepped up strikes on power generation, electricity transmission systems and gas production facilities.

In October, it launched its biggest bombing campaign against Ukrainian gas facilities since the start of the conflict in 2022, halting 60 percent of production of the main source of heating fuel.

Zelenskyy said the Russians launched more than 170 drones against Ukraine on Saturday night, making it nearly 1,000 attack drones launched in the entire week. 

Ukraine is also preparing a deal with France for "a significant strengthening of our combat aviation, air defense and other defense capabilities," said Zelenskyy, who will head to Paris on Monday for talks with French President Emmanuel Macron, followed by a visit to Spain.

Territory gains

Meanwhile, Russia said on Sunday its forces had moved forward sharply in Ukraine's south-eastern Zaporizhzhia region, taking two settlements as part of a major push aimed at taking control of the entire Zaporizhzhia region.

Ukraine has been struggling with its defenses in the Donetsk region, while keeping the rest of the front stable under intense artillery and drone attack from highly mobile Russian units.

Since advancing into the Dnipropetrovsk region in late June, Russian forces have been pushing hard and now control about 19 percent of Ukraine, or 115,476 square km. 

Russia says it controls about 75 percent of the Zaporizhzhia region which means Ukraine still holds about 7,000 square km there, including the city of Zaporizhzhia, which had a population of over 700,000 people before the conflict began.

Turkish hopes

Although ambitions of ending the conflict soon appeared bleak last week on the back of comments from both sides, there have been more positive noises coming out of Türkiye over the weekend.

Ukraine said on Wednesday it would not engage in new negotiations with Russia before the end of the year, citing the lack of substantive progress in several rounds of talks. Moscow criticized the decision, saying it showed Kyiv had "no willingness to achieve peace."

However, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan expressed optimism in an interview with Turkish news TV channel A Haber.

"Will a table for peace talks on Ukraine be set in Türkiye in the near future? We now believe so," Fidan said.

"I believe it will happen in Türkiye. It could take place somewhere else, but I am convinced that the time for peace is already here and it will come. 

"In my view, this war is now at the point closest to stopping. We see that all the conditions for a ceasefire have already matured."