Ukraine stops Russian gas deliveries to Europe

Since Wednesday morning, Russian natural gas has stopped flowing through Ukraine to Europe. The country has suspended transit as announced. “We have blocked the transit of Russian gas, this is a historic event. Russia is losing markets, it will suffer financial losses,” Ukrainian Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko said on Wednesday, according to a statement from his office.

For its part, the Russian gas company Gazprom announced that it had neither legal nor technical options to pump the gas through Ukraine.

Since the end of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russian gas has been delivered to Europe via pipelines in Ukraine, with Moscow earning revenue from the gas and Kiev earning revenue from transit fees. Kiev decided to do this in order to cut off Russia from further income, which the Kremlin also uses to finance its war of aggression against the neighboring country, and therefore did not extend the transit contract. The validity of the contract signed on December 30, 2019 expired at 6:00 a.m. (CET), Gazprom said. Russian gas accounted for less than ten percent of the European Union’s gas imports in 2023.

According to the Ukrainian Energy Minister, the “international partners” have been informed about the cessation of transit, which has been planned for months. However, some EU members remain heavily dependent on Russian gas for geographical or political reasons. In recent weeks, Hungary and Slovakia have complained that their gas taps will be turned off on December 31st, without there being any credible immediate alternatives.

Slovakia in particular protested massively against Kiev’s decision. The left-wing populist Prime Minister Robert Fico, whom critics accuse of having a pro-Russian stance, threatened to stop electricity deliveries from Slovakia to Ukraine.

However, the Slovak government in Bratislava said on Tuesday that it was prepared for the stop. The gas storage facilities are 100 percent full and there are enough reserves for the new year, the Ministry of Economic Affairs announced. “I would like to reassure all people and companies in Slovakia that we are prepared for this scenario and that there is currently no risk of a gas shortage,” said Economy Minister Denisa Sakova.

Actually, the Republic of Moldova would also have been affected by the Ukrainian transit stop. However, the Russian gas giant Gazprom had previously decided to stop deliveries to the former Soviet republic, where pro-European and pro-Russian forces are vying for power, because of alleged debts. An electricity emergency had already been declared in Moldova.

A spokeswoman for the Commission in Brussels had made it clear in advance that the EU was prepared to stop the transit of Russian gas through the war-torn country. The European gas infrastructure is flexible enough to deliver gas of non-Russian origin to Central and Eastern Europe via alternative routes.