Russian gas supplies to European Union countries via Ukraine are set to end on the first day of 2025. Ukraine’s gas transit operator says Russia has not nominated any gas flows via Ukrainian pipelines for 1 January, Euro News reported.
It marks the end of a five-year deal signed in 2019 between the two warring countries, that allowed Moscow’s exports of Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) to the continent to transit in Ukraine before being rerouted to its final destination.
The deal was highly lucrative, paying out billions to the Kremlin in revenues and to Kyiv in transit fees.
The decision came as Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced he had no plans of renewing the deal. He stressed that his decision is important to allow Europe to move on from Russia, and to not allow the Kremlin to earn additional billions.
The shutdown of Russia’s oldest gas route to Europe ends a decade of turbulent relations with the continent, beginning in 2014 with the annexation of the Ukrainian Crimean Peninsula.
The EU has been intensifying its efforts to reduce its dependence on Russian energy since Russia's special military operation in Ukraine in February 2022. Figures released by Brussels indicate that Russian gas constituted about 8% of the bloc’s total gas imports in 2023. In contrast, that figure was at over 40% in 2021.
Despite the bloc’s preparation and efforts to replace Russian gas, Europe has been feeling the impact, as energy costs soared, striking the continent’s industrial competitiveness in comparison to Western competition in the United States, and Eastern in China.
Many countries have experienced an economic slowdown, as inflation rates spiked, further worsening a cost of living crisis.
SD/
Your Comment