Russia Halts Gas Supplies to Ukraine

In October, Russia and Ukraine failed to find a compromise over the air traffic issue in Brussels.

Alexei Miller said in Moscow on Thursday that Kiev had not paid in advance for future supplies, nor had it placed new orders.

Tensions between Russia and Ukraine escalated Wednesday as Ukraine stopped buying Russian natural gas and closed its airspace to its eastern neighbor.

Ukraine is a key transit country for the delivery of Russian gas to Europe.

The Gazprom chief said Ukraine had been buying up gas to store for the coming winter in the past two months but said it was not enough to get it through the winter. “That’s why the European Commission states that we want gas to flow through Ukraine”, Canete said.

Moscow warned it may halt coal supplies to Ukraine unless it fixed electricity lines that were blown up last week, plunging into darkness most of now Russian-run Crimea – which still relies on Kiev for power.

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 Arseniy Yatsenyuk said. Gazprom announced today it has halted supplies to Ukraine following a morning shipment, The Associated Press reports. Russia’s relations with Ukraine have soured since Moscow’s annexation of Crimea in March 2014, and now the two countries are fighting about gas supplies again.

Speaking at a cabinet session in Kyiv on November 25, Yatsenyuk asked the Infrastructure Ministry to officially notify Russia about “the closure of [Ukrainian] airspace to all Russian airlines without exception”.

The Ukrainian military said another soldier was killed in a new bout of clashes across the shattered war zone in the past 24 hours, and it had imposed a unilateral ceasefire in a bid to calm the violence.

Such stoicism in the face of a problem which could last some time appeared widespread, though the dispute has exposed how dependent Crimea remains on Ukraine.