Ukraine on Wednesday halted supplies of Russian gas to European customers through its pipeline network after a pre-war transit agreement expired at the end of last year.
Ukraine’s energy minister, Herman Halushchenko, confirmed on Wednesday morning that Kiev had stopped the transit “in the interest of national security”.
“This is a historic event. Russia is losing markets and will suffer financial losses. Europe has already decided to give up Russian gas and (this) matches what Ukraine has done today,” Halushchenko said in an update on the app Telegram messages. .
At a summit in Brussels last month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy vowed that Kiev would not allow Moscow to use the transits to earn “more billions… in our blood, in the lives of our citizens.” But he had briefly held open the possibility that gas flows would continue if payments to Russia were halted until the end of the war.
Kiev refuses to extend the agreement
Russian gas firm Gazprom said in a statement on Wednesday morning that there is “no technical and legal possibility” to send gas through Ukraine, due to Kiev’s refusal to extend the agreement.
Even as Russian troops and tanks moved into Ukraine in 2022, Russian natural gas continued to flow through the country’s pipeline network — created when Ukraine and Russia were both part of the Soviet Union — to Europe, under a five-year deal. Gazprom made money from the gas and Ukraine collected transit fees.
Before the war, Russia supplied nearly 40 percent of the European Union’s pipeline natural gas. The gas flows through four pipeline systems, one under the Baltic Sea, one through Belarus and Poland, one through Ukraine and one under the Black Sea through Turkey to Bulgaria.
The Russian gas cut caused the European energy crisis
After the start of the war, Russia cut off most supplies through the Baltic and Belarus-Poland pipelines, citing disputes over a demand for payment in rubles. The Baltic Pipeline was blown up in an act of sabotage, but the details of the attack remain unclear.
The Russian outage caused an energy crisis in Europe. Germany had to spend billions of euros to set up floating terminals to import liquefied natural gas that comes by ship, not by pipeline. Users sat down as prices rose. Norway and the US filled the gap, becoming the two largest suppliers.
Europe viewed the Russian blackout as energy blackmail and has outlined plans to completely eliminate Russian gas imports by 2027.
Russia’s share of the EU’s pipeline natural gas market fell sharply to around eight percent in 2023, according to data from the EU Commission. The Ukrainian transit route served EU members Austria and Slovakia, which have long received most of their natural gas from Russia but have recently sought to diversify supplies.
Among the countries hardest hit will be EU candidate country Moldova, which was receiving Russian gas via Ukraine and has brought emergency measures as residents prepare for a harsh winter and impending blackouts.
Ukrainian prisoners of war were reunited with their families in an emotional scene on Monday after being freed in a major swap between their country and Russia. An ex-prisoner said his five-year-old son would likely not recognize him as he last saw him when he was two.
On Wednesday, Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski called Ukraine’s move to freeze supplies a “victory” for those opposed to Kremlin policies. In a post on X, Sikorski accused Moscow of systematically trying to “blackmail Eastern Europe with the threat of cutting off gas supplies,” including through a Baltic pipeline that bypasses Ukraine and Poland and goes directly to Germany.
Slovak Prime Minister: “Influence all of us in the EU”.
Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico claimed on Wednesday that the end of gas flows through Ukraine “will drastically affect everyone in the EU, but not Russia”.
Fico, whose views on Russia have shifted fundamentally from European ones, has previously criticized Kiev’s refusal to extend the transit deal and threatened to cut off electricity supplies to Ukraine in response.
Moscow can still send gas to Hungary, as well as non-EU states Turkey and Serbia, through the TurkStream pipeline through the Black Sea.
The ongoing reduction in Russian gas supplies to European countries has also prompted them to accelerate the integration of Ukraine’s energy networks with its western neighbors.
