(Reuters) -Russian President Vladimir Putin met Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico in the Kremlin on Sunday, Russian television presenter Pavel Zarubin said, as a contract allowing for Russian gas to transit through Ukraine nears its expiry date.
Slovakia is dependent on gas passing through Ukraine, and Fico has criticised Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy for refusing to extend the contract, which expires at the end of the year.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov later told the TASS news agency that the talks had ended. He said the two leaders would not issue a joint statement.
Peskov, shown in a video posted earlier on Zarubin’s account on the Telegram messaging app, said the discussions were sure to focus on gas transit and the current international situation. He said the Kremlin meeting had been arranged “a few days ago.”
Russian television showed the two leaders shaking hands at the start of their talks.
The Slovak government office could not be immediately reached for comment and did not immediately reply to emailed questions.
The pro-Russian Fico is only the third European leader to visit Putin at the Kremlin since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. He follows Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer, who visited in April 2022, and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who went to Moscow last July.
Ukraine has repeatedly said it will not extend the transit deal with Russia nearly 34 months into a war between the neighbours.
GAS TRANSIT
Slovakia, which has a long-term contract with Russian giant Gazprom, has been trying to keep receiving gas through Ukraine, saying buying elsewhere would cost it 220 million euros ($229 million) more in transit expenses.
Fico pushed the subject on Thursday at a European Union summit in Brussels, which was also attended by Zelenskiy, who reiterated that his country would not continue the transit of Russian gas.
The Slovak prime minister has also spoken of solutions under which Ukraine would not transit Russian-owned gas, but rather gas owned by someone else.
Fico has sought to keep ties with Moscow. Since taking power last year, he has stopped state military aid to Kyiv, has said the war with Russia does not have a military solution and has criticised sanctions against Moscow.
Hungary will continue to receive Russian gas from the south, via the TurkStream pipeline on the bed of the Black Sea, although it had been keen to keep the Ukrainian route as well.
Ex-Soviet Moldova has also relied on gas transiting Ukraine to supply its needs and those of its separatist Transdniestria enclave, including a thermal plant which provides most of the electricity for parts of Moldova under government control.
The acting head of Moldovagaz, the country’s gas operator, Vadim Ceban, said it could provide gas for Transdniestria acquired from other sources. But the pro-Russian region would have to pay higher prices associated with those supplies. Transdniestria has for many years paid nothing for Russian gas.
Ceban said Moldovgaz had made several appeals to Gazprom to send gas to Moldova through Turkstream and Bulgaria and Romania.
(Reporting by Reuters and Jason Hovet in Prague; Editing by Lisa Shumaker, Mark Porter and Leslie Adler)
