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The agreement between Russia’s state-owned company Gazprom and Ukraine to send gas to European countries through pipeline has now broken. According to Aljazeera, Gazprom has confirmed this. With this, the last remaining trade and political agreement between Russia and Ukraine has now ended.
Due to the breakdown of the agreement, the export of Russian natural gas to many countries in Europe has now stopped. Russian company Gazprom used to send natural gas to many countries including Slovakia, Moldova and Hungary even during the war under transit agreement. Ukraine’s Energy Minister German Galushenko said in a statement:
We have stopped the transit of Russian gas. This is a historical event. Russia is losing its markets, it will suffer financial losses.
Urengoy-Pommery-Uzhgorod pipeline. Through this, gas was supplied from Russia to European countries.
Ukraine refused to extend the agreement, Slovakia threatened
The transit agreement to send gas to European countries was 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 to persuade Ukraine not to cancel the transit agreement for several weeks. His efforts proved inadequate. Both these European leaders are considered Putin supporters.
Due to the fear of not getting gas, Robert Fico reached Moscow last week to meet Putin. He had said that if Ukraine did not renew the transit deal, Slovakia would stop the electricity supply to Ukraine. On this threat, Ukraine had said that they were not concerned about it.
Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushenko said on Monday that if Slovakia did so, Ukraine would compensate by importing electricity from Romania and Poland.
Russian President Putin and Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico. The picture is of 22 December.
Moldova’s situation is worst
The situation in Moldova is most serious. It is a country cut off from the border with Ukraine and battling Russian-backed separatists. Due to the fear of cancellation of the transit agreement, a 60-day state of emergency was imposed in Moldova in early December.
Like Moldova, Slovakia and Hungary do not face as many problems because these countries are still buying Russian gas from the Turkstream pipeline laid in the Black Sea.
Russian gas supply stopped after 60 years
Thousands of kilometers long underground pipelines are laid in Ukraine. These were laid in the Soviet era. For about 60 years, about 150 billion cubic meters (BCM) of Russian natural gas was sent to Western Europe every year with the help of these pipes.
After the start of the Russia-Ukraine war, European Union countries reduced their dependence on Russian fossil fuels. At the same time, Russia reduced the gas supply through these pipelines to 40 BCM. In 2023, this supply had further reduced to about 15 BCM, which has now become zero.