Ukraine stops Russian gas transit via its territory
Ukraine stopped Russian natural gas transit through its territory on Jan. 1, the Operator of Ukraine's Gas Transmission System said in a statement posted on Facebook.
“Starting from Jan. 1, Ukraine's gas transportation system is operating without Russian gas transit,” the statement read.
Russia has been paying Ukraine to carry its gas through Ukrainian pipelines as part of a 2019 deal between the two countries.
Ukraine has repeatedly warned that it would not extend the agreement when it expires at the end of 2024 because it did not want to finance Russia's war.
As the contract expired, the last entry point of Russian gas to Ukraine in the Ukrainian-held border town of Sudzha in Russia’s Kursk Oblast stopped working.
“Accordingly, the transportation of natural gas from the Sudzha entry point on the eastern border of Ukraine to the exit points on the western and southern borders was stopped,” the gas operator said.
As a consequence of Russia’s full-scale war and Ukraine’s repeated warnings to halt Russia’s gas transit, many European countries have sharply decreased their use of Russian gas.
But landlocked Central European countries, including Slovakia, Hungary, and Austria, still rely on Russian gas.
To force Kyiv to change its mind, Slovakia threatened to cut electricity supplies to Ukraine on Dec. 28 if Kyiv went through with its promise to halt Russian gas transit. Later Poland signified its willingness to step in should Slovakia follow through on its promises.
“The cessation of transit will have serious consequences for all of us in the European Union, but not for the Russian Federation,” Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico said during his New Year's Day address.
After Russian gas transit was halted, a major gas outage began in Moldova's Russian-occupied Transnistria region, which imports gas via Ukrainian territory, its gas supplier Tiraspoltransgaz-Pridnestrovie reported on its Telegram channel on Jan. 1.
The Kyiv Independent news desk
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