Ukraine on Wednesday halted supplies of Russian gas to European customers via its pipeline network after a pre-war transit agreement expired at the end of last year.
Ukrainian Energy Minister Herman Haloshenko confirmed on Wednesday morning that Kiev had stopped the crossing “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 phase out Russian gas, and (this) is in line with what Ukraine did today.”
At a summit in Brussels last month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky pledged that Kiev would not allow Moscow to use transportation to earn “extra billions… from our blood, from the lives of our citizens.” But he briefly kept open the possibility that gas flows would continue if payments to Russia were withheld until the war ended.
Russian company Gazprom said in a statement on Wednesday morning that it “does not have the technical and legal possibility” to send gas through Ukraine, due to Kiev’s refusal to extend the agreement.
Even as Russian troops and tanks move into Ukraine in 2022, Russian natural gas has continued to flow through the country’s network of pipelines — built when Ukraine and Russia were part of the Soviet Union — to Europe, under a five-year agreement. Gazprom made money from gas and Ukraine collected transit fees.
Before the war, Russia supplied the European Union with about 40% of its natural gas needs via pipelines. 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 via Turkey to Bulgaria.
After the war began, Russia cut off most supplies via the Baltic and Belarus-Poland pipelines, due to disagreements over demands to be paid in rubles. The Baltic Pipeline was blown up in an act of sabotage, but details of the attack remain murky.
Cutting off Russian supplies caused an energy crisis in Europe. Germany was forced to spend billions of euros to establish floating terminals to import liquefied natural gas, which comes by ship, not by pipeline. Users cut back as prices rise. Norway and the United States filled this gap, becoming the largest suppliers.
Europe considered cutting off Russian supplies as energy blackmail and outlined plans to completely eliminate Russian gas imports by 2027.
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Russia’s share of the EU pipeline natural gas market fell sharply to about 8% in 2023, according to European Commission data. The Ukrainian transit route serves Austria and Slovakia, members of the European Union, which have long obtained the bulk of their natural gas needs from Russia, but have recently rushed to diversify supplies.
Gazprom halted supplies to Austria’s OMV in mid-November due to a contractual dispute, but gas flows through Ukrainian pipelines continued as other customers intervened. This year, Slovakia signed deals to begin purchasing natural gas from Azerbaijan, as well as to import liquefied natural gas from the United States through it. Pipeline from Poland.
Among the most affected countries will be Moldova, a candidate country for European Union membership, which has been receiving Russian gas via Ukraine, and has taken emergency measures as residents prepare for a harsh winter and looming power outages.
Separate from Kiev’s decision to allow the transit agreement to expire, Gazprom said last month that it would halt gas supplies to Moldova from January 1, due to unpaid debts. Gazprom said Moldova owed nearly $709 million for previous gas supplies, a figure the country strongly disputed, citing international audits.
Heating and hot water supplies were suddenly cut off Wednesday to homes in Transnistria, the breakaway region of Moldova that has hosted Russian forces for decades, as the flow of Russian natural gas to the region halted, local carrier Tiraspol Transgaz-Transnistria said.
In an online statement, the company urged residents to bring family members together in one room, hang blankets on windows and balcony doors, and use electric heaters. She said some major facilities including hospitals were excluded from the cuts.
On December 13, Moldova’s parliament voted to impose a state of emergency in the energy sector, with fears growing that a gas shortage could spark a humanitarian crisis in Transnistria, which has been dependent for decades on Russian energy supplies.
Many observers have predicted that the looming energy shortage may force people in the breakaway territories to travel to Moldova, in search of basic amenities to get through the harsh winter and increasing pressure on resources.
Moldovan, Ukrainian and European Union politicians have repeatedly accused Moscow of using energy supplies as a weapon.
On Wednesday, Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski described Ukraine’s move to halt supplies as a “victory” for those who oppose the Kremlin’s policies. In a post on the website
Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico announced on Wednesday that stopping the flow of gas through Ukraine “will greatly affect all of us in the European Union, but not Russia.”
Fico, whose views on Russia differed sharply from the European mainstream, had previously criticized Kiev’s refusal to extend the transit deal, and threatened to halt electricity supplies to Ukraine in response.
Moscow can still send gas to Hungary, as well as to non-EU countries Turkey and Serbia, via the TurkStream pipeline across the Black Sea.
The continuing decline in Russian gas supplies to European countries has also prompted it to accelerate the integration of Ukrainian energy networks with its neighbors in the West.
Last week, private Ukrainian energy company DTEK said it had received its first shipment of liquefied natural gas from the United States, which will be delivered through a newly expanded network spanning six countries from Greece to Ukraine — marking an important step in reducing regional dependence on Russia. energy.
Separately, on New Year’s Eve, Russia launched a drone strike in Kiev, killing two people under the rubble of a destroyed building, according to the city administration. At least six people were injured across the Ukrainian capital, according to city mayor Vitali Klitschko.
Regional authorities stated that the Russian bombing also led to the death of a man and the injury of two women in the city of Kherson in southern Ukraine.
