Ukraine will stop supplying Russian oil and gas to the European Union at the end of the year when the current contract for transit through Ukrainian territory expires. The contract will not be renewed, Mykhailo Podolyak, the adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky, said today in an interview with the Ukrainian television Novini.Live, DPA quoted by BTA reported.
The current contract expires at the end of the year, and although the agreement cannot be unilaterally cancelled, "there is no doubt that everything will end on January 1, 2025,", Podoliak said.
Kiev is ready to transport gas from the countries of Central Asia or Azerbaijan to Europe, but not from Russia, as it is extremely important for Ukraine to deprive Russia of its sources of income, DPA points out.
The contract for the transit of Russian gas through Ukraine to Europe, which was concluded between the state companies "Gazprom" and "Naftogaz", expires on December 31.
Ukrainian representatives have repeatedly claimed that Kiev has no plans to renew the gas transit contract with Russia. Earlier in the week, President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed that Ukraine will not continue the agreement on the transit of Russian gas, but is ready to consider the requests of European companies.
Despite the launch of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Ukrainians complied with the terms of the treaty and continued to transport Russian oil and gas - in part at the insistence of their European neighbors, particularly Hungary.
Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjártó, who arrived in St. Petersburg today, announced on his Facebook profile that he met with the head of Gazprom. Alexey Miller.
The two discussed gas supplies to Hungary, TASS reported.
"Hungary's energy security cannot be ensured without Russian gas. This is not a matter of politics, but of physics and mathematics," wrote Sijarto.
Hungarian leadership is satisfied with cooperation with Russia in the energy sector despite criticism from other European countries, he added.
"In just a month, on October 1, a new gas year and a new heating season will begin. Our responsibility is clear: to provide heating for Hungarian homes," said Budapest's first diplomat.
Hungary still gets more than half of its gas needs from Russia. In October 2022, an agreement was reached between the Hungarian MVM (MVM) and "Gazprom" to increase supplies on the southern route through Turkey, and the transportation of gas through Ukraine began to decrease
In 2022 through "Turkish Stream" and its continuation through Bulgaria and Serbia, 4.8 billion cubic meters of gas were delivered to Hungary, TASS recalls.