Ukraine halts transit of Russian gas to Europe after a prewar deal expired
abcnews.go.comUkraine has halted Russian gas supplies to European customers through its pipeline network, almost three years into Moscow’s all-out invasion of its neighbor
KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine on Wednesday halted Russian gas supplies to European customers through its pipeline network after a prewar transit deal expired at the end of 2024 and almost three years into Moscow's all-out invasion of its neighbor.
Even as Russian troops and tanks moved into Ukraine in February 2022, Russian natural gas kept flowing through the country’s pipeline network — set up when Ukraine and Russia were both part of the Soviet Union — to Europe, under a five-year agreement.
Russia's state-owned energy giant Gazprom earned money from the gas and Ukraine collected transit fees.
Ukraine’s energy minister, Herman Halushchenko, confirmed Kyiv had stopped the transit “in the interest of national security."
“This is a historic event. Russia is losing markets and will incur financial losses," Halushchenko said Wednesday on the Telegram messaging app. «Europe has already decided to phase out Russian gas, and (this) aligns with what Ukraine has done today.”
At a summit in Brussels last month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy vowed that Kyiv would not allow Moscow to use the transits to earn “additional billions… on our blood, on the lives of our citizens.” However, he briefly held open the possibility of the gas flows continuing if payments to Russia were withheld until the war ends.
Gazprom said in a statement Wednesday it “has no technical and legal possibility” of sending gas through Ukraine, due to Kyiv's refusal to extend the deal.
Before the war, Russia supplied nearly 40% of the European Union's pipeline natural gas. Gas flowed through four
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