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Moscow and Kyiv have failed to agree on a deal brokered by Azerbaijan to continue Russian gas exports to Europe via Ukraine, a senior source at the Azeri energy company SOCAR told Reuters on Friday (20 December).
This development puts and end to hopes that gas transiting via Ukraine could continue to flow after 31 December, when a long-term gas transit contract between Moscow and Kyiv ends.
Ukraine, fighting Russia’s invasion since February 2022, has made it plain for months that it would not extend the gas transit plan with Russia.
Slovakia and other countries receiving gas from Russia, transited via pipelines in Ukraine, were in talks to try to avoid those flows stopping when the agreement runs out.
The European Union and Ukraine had asked Azerbaijan to facilitate discussions with Russia about a gas transit deal to keep gas flowing.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that it was clear there would be no new deal with Kyiv to send Russian gas through Ukraine to Europe.
Ukraine has said it will not extend a contract under which close to 15 billion cubic metres (bcm) of Russian gas are sent to Europe each year. That compares to the 150 billion bcm of piped gas that flowed through Ukraine in 2022.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy did say on Thursday that Kyiv could consider continued transit of Russian gas, but only on condition that Moscow did not receive payment until after the war – a condition it was unlikely to accept.
Ukrainian PM Denys Shmyhal said the transit agreement would expire on the morning of 1 January, Interfax-Ukraine news agency reported. He said transit could only resume for non-Russian gas, if requested by the European Commission.
The SOCAR source said SOCAR had been mediating in negotiations between Ukrainian and Russian energy companies for almost a year, at the request of Ukraine and the European Union.
He said senior managers had met senior representatives of Ukrainian energy companies on2 May in Istanbul and on 29 August in Vienna, adding: “In the end, the Ukrainian and Russian sides could not agree on the terms.”
SOCAR, the Russian energy giant Gazprom and Ukraine’s state-run Naftogaz did not immediately reply to requests for official comment.
(Edited by Georgi Gotev)
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