Kiev to stop buying gas from Russia: Minister
Ukraine’s Energy Minister Volodymyr Demchyshyn says Kiev will temporarily stop buying natural gas from Russia on April 1.
“There’s no reason to buy [Russian gas] at a higher price when we can buy it from Europe, so I think we’ll just stop buying it,” he told a news briefing in Kiev.
In the past, Ukraine has been heavily reliant on Russian gas, but Kiev has started to diversify supplies away from its eastern neighbor as tensions between the two countries escalated last spring over clashes between Ukrainian troops and pro-Russian forces.
However, the gas disputes between the two over supplies, prices, and debts have been going on for years. The row has grown into a transnational political issue concerning leaders from several European countries, and threatens natural gas supplies to some European Union (EU) members which depend on the Russian gas imports via Ukraine. The EU procures around a third of its gas from Russia, half of which is delivered through pipelines running through Ukraine.
Last month, Russia’s state-owned gas giant Gazprom threatened again to cut off its supplies to Ukraine and divert them to the country’s eastern regions, which are controlled by pro-Russia forces.
The two mainly Russian-speaking regions of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine have been hit by deadly clashes between pro-Russian forces and the Ukrainian army since Kiev launched military operations in April last year to crush pro-Russia forces there.
This is while Russia is said to be considering offering Kiev a discount in gas price compared to the previous contract that expires in April. The two countries are negotiating the terms of a deal and may sign the new contract on April 13-14. “The decision is nearly complete from a technical standpoint,” said Ukraine's energy minister.
Ukraine has also announced plans to buy large quantities of natural gas to safely fill up its storage facilities in order to ensure a smooth flow of gas to the EU, as well as a low-risk and uninterrupted home consumption during the next cold season.
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