Ukraine’s Small Gas Payment To Russia Gets Supplies Flowing For Another Few …
Ukraine sent a payment of $15 million to Russia’s Gazprom natural gas supplier Friday to keep much-needed gas flowing to the battered country for a few more days, Russian and Ukrainian officials said. The gas row came as fighting in the east between pro-Russian separatists and the Ukrainian military cooled. Russia has repeatedly used its gas monopoly in Ukraine to pressure Kyiv to concede to separatists, who the pro-West government and its Western allies say are directly supported by the Russian military.
Earlier this week, Russian officials said they were prepared to supply gas to rebel-held territory for free and still cut of the rest of the country by the beginning of next week if Ukraine didn’t pay. A Ukrainian cutoff to rebel-held areas, which is already suffering a massive humanitarian crisis, “smacks of genocide,” said Russian President Vladimir Putin Wednesday. Many in the east have gone months without electricity, clean water and heat.
“Gazprom yesterday confirmed they would not count the gas supplied to Donetsk and Luhansk as covered by our prepayment and we immediately made a small advance for March …to calm the nerves of our European colleagues,” said Andriy Kobolev, CEO of Ukrainian state gas company Naftogaz.
Ukraine agreed late last year to pay in advance for its gas supplies, which Russia has cut off three times over the last decade over missed payments. The European Commission helped ink a deal between the nations in December that set a price for Russian supplies to Ukraine through the end of the winter. That period ends on March 31, after which the two sides will again need to hammer out a payment rate. The EC invited representatives of the two sides back to the negotiating table in Brussels, Belgium on Monday, according to Reuters.
Russia supplies nearly all of Ukraine’s natural gas and 15 percent of Europe’s natural gas through Ukrainian territory, which sparked concern in Europe that a Ukrainian cutoff would affect supplies further west. Europe receives 30 percent of their total natural gas supplies from Russia. Russia’s strong energy sector has allowed it to cut deal with neighbors for cheap gas in return for political support and allowed them to do the opposite if it opposes political developments in the former Soviet space.
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