Peskov: Russia can stop gas supplies to Ukraine
27 February 2015 – 10:52am
The Press Secretary of the President of Russia, Dmitry Peskov, said today that Russia could stop gas supplies to Ukraine.
“If we won’t get a new payment from Kyiv, we will stop gas supplies to Ukraine,” he said. “It is important for Ukraine to pay up. If there won’t be a prepayment, there won’t be supply,” the Press Secretary of the President told Fuad Safarov in an exclusive interview with ‘Vestnik Kavkaza’.
President Vladimir Putin said yesterday that “within days Ukraine risks being left without Russian gas.” “Gazprom has been fully complying with its obligations under the Ukraine gas supply contract and will continue doing so. The advance payment for gas supplies made by the Ukrainian side will be in place for another three to four days. If there is no further prepayment, Gazprom will suspend supplies under the contract and its supplement. Of course, this could create a certain problem for gas transit to Europe to our European partners,” the head of state said.
The president said he hoped it would be possible to do without extreme measures. “The Russian Energy Minister and Gazprom executives have been making vigorous attempts to not only inform but also involve our European partners in the resolution of this problem over the past several days. We hope that it will not come to extreme measures and gas supplies will not be interrupted. But this does not depend only on us, it depends on the financial discipline of our Ukrainian partners,” Vladimir Putin said.