Miller reportedly said that over the last two months, Ukraine has been buying gas to store for the coming winter. That means that supplies will be halted until Gazprom receives new prepayments from the Ukrainian company, the Russian company said.
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Russia’s Gazprom said Wednesday that it will suspend delivery of gas to Ukraine, until the latter’s state-owned gas company Naftogaz makes an advance payment.
The move was widely expected after Ukraine said earlier that it did not need more gas from Russian Federation for now. Russian Federation uses Ukraine’s pipelines to transport a part of its gas deliveries to other European countries. There has been no request for gas deliveries from Ukraine’s Naftogaz. Temperatures in Ukraine can drop to as cold as -4 degrees Fahrenheit (-20 degrees Celsius) in winter, and most homes in Ukraine rely on piped gas for central heating. A new prepayment has not been received.
However, it resumed them following a deal under which Ukraine switched to a pre-payment system. Under the deal, Russian Federation lowered the price it charged Ukraine to the same level granted to neighboring countries, from $251 per 1,000 cubic meters to about $230.
The letter, written on Thursday and signed by Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia, says the project should come under the closest regulatory scrutiny and called for “an inclusive debate” at next month’s European Union summit.
The prime minister said the main reason for the decision is the difference in European and Russian gas prices, with European ones being “much better”, as Yatsenyuk said.
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Ukraine and Russian Federation have been in a standoff since the latter’s annexation of Crimea in March 2014.
