Russia gives Ukraine more time to pay gas bills
Gazprom confirmed that it had received the payment. The company’s chief
executive Alexei Miller said in a statement that switching to prepayment
would depend on whether Kyiv pays off all its debt of $2.24bn for gas
delivered before April 1 and on “progress” in paying off for April and May.
“Payment for May should be done before June 9,” Miller said in the statement,
in effect extending the deadline by six days.
Ukraine’s total debt for gas deliveries would have topped $5.2bn as of June 7
if no payments had been made.
Kyiv wants to return to a discount gas price of $268.50 per 1,000 cubic metres
while Moscow is demanding $485 – the highest paid by any client.
Europe is getting a third of its gas needs from Russia. On Monday, Gazprom
said gas flows to Europe were as usual.