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Russian Stopped Gas Supply To Europe Via Ukraine

  • By ThetripurapostWeb Desk, Moscow
  • Jan 01, 2025
  • 330

The agreement between Russia's state-owned company Gazprom and Ukraine to send gas to European countries through a pipeline has now broken down. According to Al Jazeera, Gazprom has confirmed this. With this, the last remaining business and political agreement between Russia and Ukraine has now ended

The breakdown of the agreement has now stopped the export of Russian natural gas to many European countries. Russian company Gazprom used to send natural gas to many countries including Slovakia, Moldova and Hungary even during the war under the transit agreement. Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushenko said in a statement-

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We have stopped the transit of Russian gas. This is a historic event. Russia is losing its markets, it will suffer financial losses.

The transit agreement for sending gas to European countries started in 2019. It was to end on 31 December 2024. Ukraine had refused to renew this agreement.

Slovakia's PM Robert Fico and Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban had been trying for several weeks to persuade Ukraine not to cancel the transit agreement. Their efforts proved insufficient. Both these European leaders are considered to be Putin supporters.

Due to the fear of not getting gas, Robert Fico had reached Moscow to meet Putin last week. He had said that if Ukraine did not renew the transit deal, Slovakia would stop the supply of electricity to Ukraine. On this threat, Ukraine had said that it does not care about it.

Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushenko said on Monday that if Slovakia does so, Ukraine would compensate by importing electricity from Romania and Poland.

The situation in Moldova is the most serious. This country is cut off from Ukraine and is battling Russian-backed separatists. A 60-day state of emergency was imposed in Moldova in early December due to the fear of the transit agreement being cancelled.

Slovakia and Hungary are not facing as many problems as Moldova because these countries are still buying Russian gas from the TurkStream pipeline laid in the Black Sea.

Ukraine is crisscrossed by thousands of kilometers of underground pipelines that were laid during the Soviet era. For nearly 60 years, these pipes have been used to transport about 150 billion cubic meters (BCM) of Russian natural gas to Western Europe every year.

After the Russia-Ukraine war began, the European Union countries reduced their dependence on Russian fossil fuels. At the same time, Russia reduced the supply of gas through these pipelines to 40 BCM. In 2023, this supply was further reduced to about 15 BCM, which has now become zero.