Ukraine President Says Gas Deal Reached With Russia
Kyiv (Alliance News) – Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has said he has reached a deal with Russia to ensure supplies of natural gas to his country this winter.
The two sides agreed that Ukraine would pay 385 dollars per 1,000 cubic metres of gas between now and March 31, Poroshenko said in a nationally televised interview on Saturday night.
That is a much lower figure than the 485 dollars that Russian energy giant Gazprom had so far been demanding.
“I can say that Ukraine will have gas and warmth this winter,” Poroshenko said.
Poroshenko, who met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Milan last week, said the agreement could be finalized in Brussels on Tuesday at a meeting between Russian, Ukrainian and EU officials.
Russia stopped gas deliveries to its western neighbour in the summer over billions of dollars in arrears.
Kyiv is likely to pay 3.1 billion dollars to Gazprom to compensate for the unpaid bills before the end of October.
Poroshenko also called on the international community to donate more money to keep Ukraine’s economy afloat, referring to the 30 billion dollars donated so far as “insufficient.”
Also on Sunday, pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine rejected claims published in German news magazine Der Spiegel that they shot down Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in July.
Separatist leader Andrey Purgin told Interfax news agency that the magazine’s claims citing the German intelligence agency BND are false, instead blaming the leadership in Kyiv for the crash.
Spiegel’s report says that BND chief Gerhard Schindler told a parliamentary committee that the rebels had stolen the Buk missile system from a Ukrainian military stockpile and used it to down the passenger plane, killing all 298 on board.
Copyright dpa
