Russia’s state-owned gas company Gazprom early yesterday suspended gas deliveries via Ukraine, Vienna-based utility OMV said, in a development that signals a fast-approaching end of Moscow’s last gas flows to Europe.
Russia’s oldest gas-export route to Europe, a pipeline dating back to Soviet days via Ukraine, is set to shut at the end of this year.
Ukraine has said it would not extend the transit agreement with Russian state-owned Gazprom to deprive Russia of profits that Kyiv says help to finance the war against it.
Photo: AP
Moscow’s suspension of gas for Austria, the main receiver of gas via Ukraine, means Russia now only supply significant gas volumes to Hungary and Slovakia, in Hungary’s case via a pipeline running mostly through Turkey. In contrast, Russia met 40 percent of the EU’s gas needs before Moscow’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer on Friday said that Gazprom’s notice of ending supplies was long expected and Austria has made preparations.
“No home will go cold ... gas-storage facilities are sufficiently full,” he told reporters.
Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha wrote on X that Russia’s action showed it “once again uses energy as a weapon,” but Austria would find a way to ensure energy security and “reject blackmail.”
“The era of Europe relying on Russian gas is over,” he said. “Time to fully cut Russian energy profits — and war funding.”
OMV said it has been preparing for the eventual cut-off of Russian gas and can deliver gas to its customers by importing via Germany, Italy and the Netherlands.
The announcement follows a contractual dispute between Gazprom and OMV.
Gazprom’s move might fan concerns in Austria about heating through the winter and served as Moscow’s rebuke to its political class since the Russia-friendly Freedom Party was cut out of coalition talks after winning September’s election, said Ulrich Schmid, a professor of Eastern European studies at the University of St Gallen.
European and global gas prices spiked following a drop in Russian pipeline supplies in 2022, but some European countries found alternative sources, including liquefied natural gas from the US, which has become the world’s top gas producer and is expected to expand production.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a radio interview aired yesterday that Ukraine must do all it can to ensure the war with Russia ends next year through diplomacy.
On Friday, Zelenskiy said that the war would “end sooner” than it otherwise would have done once US president-elect Donald Trump takes office in January next year.
“It is certain that the war will end sooner with the policies of the team that will now lead the White House. This is their approach, their promise to their citizens,” Zelenskiy said in an interview with Ukrainian public broadcaster Suspilne.
In yesterday’s interview, he said he would only speak with Trump directly and not any emissary or adviser.
“From our side, we must do everything so that this war ends next year, ends through diplomatic means,” Zelenskiy said.
Additional reporting by AFP
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