Putin is clear: there will be no Ukraine Gas Transit Deal

Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, said that it is now clear that no new gas transit agreement will be signed with Kyiv for Russian gas to be sent through Ukraine to Europe. However, Russia will survive.

As the EU attempts to reduce its dependency on Moscow, Russia has lost nearly all its European clients. Before the Ukraine War, Russia was Europe's largest single natural gas supplier.

The Nord Stream gas pipeline, which was destroyed in 2022, cut off a major artery of Russian gas exports.

Now one of the last main Russian gas routes to Europe - the Soviet-era Urengoy-Pomary-Uzhgorod pipeline via Ukraine - is due to shut at the end of this year as Kyiv does not want to extend a five-year transit agreement which brings northern Siberian gas to Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Austria.

Putin stated that the contract would not be renewed. He added that Ukraine had shut off Russian gas to Europe.

He said, "Okay. We will cope and Gazprom is going to cope."

After World War II, Soviet and post-Soviet leader spent half a decade building an energy business that linked Germany, Europe's largest economy, to the Soviet Union, then Russia.

At its height, Russia supplied 35% of Europe’s gas. Since the Ukraine War began in 2022, Gazprom's market share has been lost to Norway, United States, and Qatar.

Putin claimed that Western sanctions against Russian LNG were a bid to protect the West's suppliers from competition.

He said that Western sanctions caused problems but Russia would survive. Reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin, Oksana Kobieva; Writing and Editing by Guy Faulconbridge

(source: Reuters)