KIEV, Aug. 18 - Ukraine on Saturday started testing a natural gas pipeline that helps the country to import European gas via Slovakia, the national energy company Naftogaz Ukrayiny reported over the weekend.

KIEV, Aug. 15 – Metinvest, the largest Ukrainian mining and metal holding, has said that control by customs agencies of Russia over metal products supplied to the Russian market has grown since August 13.

KIEV, Aug. 16 – The debts of municipal heat and power enterprises for natural gas supplied by Naftogaz Ukrayiny as of August 10 exceeded UAH 17.4 billion, the state holding reported.

KIEV, Aug. 16 – The Obolon Corporation, one of the largest beer and beverage producers in Ukraine, has suspended shipments of its products to Russia due to the blocking of Ukrainian goods on the Russian border.

KIEV, Aug. 16 - The negative balance of the bilateral trade between Ukraine and Russia was caused primarily by inflated prices for Russian natural gas, Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said.

KIEV, Aug. 16 - Prime Minister Mykola Azarov plans to meet soon with the head of PJSC Ukrnafta, the largest oil extracting company in the country, Peter Vanhecke.

MOSCOW, Aug. 17 - A Russian-Ukrainian conversion carrier rocket, Dnepr, launched from the Yasny launch base in the Orenburg Region on Wednesday, has put seven satellites into orbit, Alexander Serkin, the deputy general director of the international space company, Kosmotras, told Interfax-AVN.

KIEV, Aug. 17 - Viktor Vekselberg's Renova is in talks to buy 25% stakes in firms that own three ferroalloy smelters and two manganese ore mines in Ukraine from Victor Pinchuk's EastOne group, the Kommersant newspaper reported, quoting sources familiar with the negotiations.

KIEV, Aug. 17 - National energy company Ukrenergo sold 765 megawatts of electricity for export from September 1 to September 30 at an auction for access to the Ukrainian power grid for UAH 7,000.

KIEV, Aug. 18 – The Cyclone-4 space rocket complex being created by Ukraine and Brazil at the Alcantara Cyclone Space will have a new high-precision control system, said Yuriy Alekseyev, the head of Ukraine’s State Space Agency.