Miller said Wednesday, according to the Associated Press (AP), that Ukraine’s “refusal to buy Russian gas threatens a safe gas transit to Europe through Ukraine and gas supplies to Ukraine consumers in the coming winter”.
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Ukraine has imported 400 million cubic metres of Russian gas so far this month, Ukrtransgaz data showed, and Energy Minister Volodymyr Demchyshyn said this week that Kiev had enough gas in reserve without buying any more.
“Russian airlines and Russian aircraft are not entitled to use Ukrainian airspace anymore”, announced Yatsenyuk during a cabinet meeting on Wednesday. Ukraine had already gone a full summer without making any purchases of Russian gas.
The European Commission said transit isn’t a concern at the moment, while Ukraine said it will keep shipping fuel to Europe strictly in line with the transit contract.
European Commissioner for Climate Action and Energy, Miguel Canete said on Thursday, an Ukrinform correspondent in Brussels reports.
Relations between Moscow and Kiev are at an all-time low because of Russia’s annexation of the Crimea peninsula and a pro-Russian separatist rebellion in Ukraine’s two eastern-most regions. “Today or tomorrow gas deliveries will be stopped because of lack of advance payment”, Novak told Vesti FM in Moscow.
Chairman Alexei Miller said Ukraine’s Naftogaz had failed to make the payment and delivery was halted as a result, local media is reporting.
After a power blackout in Crimea prompted by an explosion that downed several electricity pylons on Ukrainian territory, the two countries have traded punitive measures with little restraint. “Therefore we have set the (gas) deliveries”.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuks said authorities in Kiev would prevent state energy firm Naftogaz from buying any more gas from Russian Federation to reduce its energy dependence on Moscow.
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Russia’s plans to extend its gas link to Germany run counter to EU interests and risk further destabilising Ukraine, 10 European governments said in a letter to the European Commission that called for a summit-level debate on the issue.
