Ukraine closes its airspace to Russian Federation

On Wednesday, the chief executive of the Russian energy giant Gazprom said in a statement that gas supplies to Ukraine would be cut off that day until Russia received prepayment for further deliveries.

Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller said that Ukraine has begun using gas from its underground storages.

Ukraine is technically in a Russian-backed cease-fire, which separatist pro-Russian rebels and government forces have mainly adhered to, but some fear this new row could put that at risk.

Yatsenyuk claimed Ukraine could buy cheaper gas from Europe and had reduced consumption by 20 percent. “They have about 17 billion cubic meters of gas in underground storage facilities, and it depends on how they will consume it. The winter has not started yet, but there is already another problem associated with the termination of deliveries of Russian coal”.

Ukraine has since been trying to cut its dependence on Russian Federation gas, buying from European nations that had bought it from Russian Federation at a lower price. By the blowing up of power pylons, allegedly by protesting Crimean Tatars and Ukrainian nationalists, the power supply of the Crimea from the Ukraine was been capped on Saturday.

“The government has made the decision to instruct Naftogaz to halt the purchase of Russian gas, so as to end the confusion”, Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk said.

The stoppage comes less than two months after the two countries signed an EU-brokered deal ensuring supplies through March. Parts of Ukraine’s industrial heartland are in ruins. Another standoff in 2009 caused serious disruptions in shipments European Union countries in the dead of winter.

Temperatures in Ukraine, where most homes rely on gas for central heating, were below freezing Wednesday morning.

Kiev would also ban Russian airlines from using Ukrainian airspace for any transit flights, Yatseniuk told a government meeting.

Kiev on October 25 barred most Russian airlines from flying into Ukraine – a decision that prompted immediate reciprocal measures by Moscow – but allowed Russian airlines to cross its airspace to other destinations.

Russia’s energy minister Alexander Novak said Kiev’s failure to restore power to Crimea, which Moscow annexed past year, raised the possibility that coal supplies to Ukraine may be stopped, potentially starving its power stations of fuel.