kyiv – Ukraine would not object to Qatar or any other country negotiating an energy security deal through separate negotiations with Ukraine and Russia, a senior Ukrainian presidential official said in a published television interview Monday.

But Andriy Yermak, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s chief of staff, said no such agreement existed.

“We have organized thematic conferences, the first on energy security, co-hosted by Qatar,” Yermak said.

“After that, we said that if Qatar or any other country is ready to implement these agreements (reached at the conference) through agreements with Ukraine separately and with Russia separately, please do so .”

Yermak did not specify what deals might be involved, but said no deals had yet been reached and that kyiv was not negotiating directly with Moscow, which began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

The Ukrainian presidency indicated at the end of August that around 40 countries had participated in an online conference organized by Qatar and that the main topic was improving the security of the Ukrainian energy system against Russian strikes.

The online conference took place on August 22, shortly after Ukrainian forces entered Russia’s Kursk region in early August.

Since March, Russia has carried out a dozen major missile attacks on Ukraine’s energy system, causing Ukraine to lose nearly half of its production capacity.

“Protecting energy infrastructure, its rapid restoration and development is the only way to prevent the crisis from worsening,” Yermak said in August.

The Financial Times reported in October that Ukraine and Russia were in the early stages of negotiations over the possibility of stopping airstrikes on each other’s energy facilities.

The talks, the sources told the FT, were derailed following kyiv’s forces launching an incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, which borders Ukraine.

The Kremlin and a Ukrainian energy source have rejected the information. REUTERS