Russian Federation halts Ukraine gas deliveries

Russia’s state-controlled gas company, Gazprom, said Wednesday that it stopped sending gas to Ukraine on Wednesday because Ukraine has not paid in advance for more deliveries.

“We are doing this because the price offers from our European partners are significantly better than those from our northern neighbour”, he said.

Ukraine has just made an announcement of a ban applying to all Russian airplanes that prevents them from transiting through its airspace. The measure was annocuned by Ukraine’s Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk during a government meeting.

If not renewed, Russian gas might not flow anymore through the Bratstvo gas pipeline, which leads from Russia through Ukraine and Slovakia to the Western Europe, Sefcovic said.

As UNIAN reported earlier, two out of four power transmission pylons on the administrative border between mainland Ukraine and Russian-occupied Crimea, which were damaged by blasts in the early hours of November 20, were destroyed completely late Saturday, November 21.

Ukraine, reliant on Russian gas for more than 20 percent of its needs this year, halted imports from Gazprom in July because of a pricing dispute before resuming shipments in October to refill underground storage sites.

While Novak cited Ukraine’s failure to pay for its gas supplies, it looks as if the real reason may be the escalation of the argument between the countries over the annexation of Crimea. The move came unexpectedly amid a relative lull in fighting in separatist eastern Ukraine. There are no applications for gas supplies from Naftogaz Ukrainy. Novak had complained that Ukrainian authorities were not doing enough to allow fix crews to restore power to Crimea, citing “some kind of political motivation” not to ease the plight of 938,000 residents there remaining without electricity, waiting for Russian Federation to sent 300 mobile generators to the peninsula as an interim solution.

Kiev said it did not need any more Russian gas for now and would guarantee the transit of piped Russian gas bound for Europe.

“So, supplies are being stopped until new payments arrive from the Ukrainian company”, he said.