KIEV, Feb. 16 - Ukraine hopes the European Union will block the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline as a project that increases monopolization of the European market and causes considerable damage to Ukraine, Slovakia and Poland, and hopes to attract investors for the Ukrainian gas transportation system (GTS), the most efficient and reliable mode to transit Russian natural gas into Europe, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk said.

"I publicly appealed to our European partners for the Nord Stream 2 project to be blocked. The Russian goal is this: to ditch the Ukrainian GTS as metal waste [...], leave Ukraine, Slovakia and Poland without billions in profits and create yet another monopoly," the prime minister told the Verkhovna Rada on Tuesday.