Putin hits at West's bid to preserve hegemony

MOSCOW/KYIV — Some Western countries are working to preserve their political, economic, financial, military and ideological dominance, and these efforts have increased the risk of conflict in the world, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday.

"They would go to any lengths to maintain hegemony, even consciously exacerbating chaos and causing an international escalation," Putin told an online meeting of defense ministers from a number of countries, including those from the Commonwealth of Independent States.

The United States and its allies rely on the use of force, and they have destroyed the architecture of strategic stability that the world has been building for decades, aggressively expanding the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's geographical scope, he said.

In Ukraine, First Deputy Economy Minister Denis Kudin was quoted as saying by the Interfax-Ukraine news agency on Friday that the government downgraded its forecasts for economic growth this year.

During a discussion at the Center for Economic Strategy in Kyiv, Kudin said that the government expects GDP to decline 33.2 percent this year, rising from an earlier estimate of 32 percent.

Hydrogen pipeline

An underwater pipeline to bring hydrogen from the Iberian Peninsula to the rest of Europe will be completed by 2030, the leaders of France, Spain and Portugal said on Friday.

The announcement of the H2Med project comes as Europe contends with an energy crisis resulting from the Ukraine conflict. The project is seen as helping Europe shift from fossil fuels.

The pipeline between Barcelona and Marseille — also known as the BarMar project — will carry 2 million tons of hydrogen a year, or 10 percent of expected European consumption, once it goes online, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said.

The project will cost around 2.5 billion euros ($2.6 billion), he said at a news conference with French President Emmanuel Macron and Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa.

Xinhua - Agencies