Moscow, Kyiv end Russian gas transit to Europe via Ukraine

AFP | Moscow

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Russia’s gas transit to Europe via Ukraine stopped yesterday, Moscow and Kyiv said, ending a decades-long arrangement and marking the latest casualty of the war between the neighbours.

Russian gas has been supplied to Europe via pipelines crossing Ukraine since the end of the Soviet Union in 1991 in an arrangement that earned revenues for Moscow from the gas and for Kyiv from the transit fees.

The latest transit contract expired yesterday, with Ukraine opting not to extend the deal following Russia’s 2022 invasion.

Kyiv hailed the end of Russian gas transit as a “historic event,” and said it would deal a blow to Russia’s finances and its war machine.

But Moscow casts it as Ukraine shooting itself in the foot and frustrating its partners in eastern Europe that rely on Russian supplies. Slovakia, one of those countries, has slammed the move, but it has been welcomed by others inside the EU, including Poland.

Russian gas accounted for less than 10 percent of the European Union’s gas imports in 2023 -- down from more than 40 percent before the war.

But some of the bloc’s eastern members are still heavily reliant on Russian imports. “We have stopped the transit of Russian gas,” Ukraine’s Energy Minister German Galushchenko said in a statement yesterday, calling it “a historical event.”

“Russia is losing its markets, it will suffer financial losses,” he added.

Russia’s Gazprom energy giant said in a separate statement that “Russian gas has not been supplied for transit via Ukraine since 8:00 am (0500 GMT)”. It said it had lost the “technical and legal right” to ship its gas across Ukraine to Europe.