SOCHI (Reuters) – Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said on Wednesday that Moscow was ready to keep supplying gas to Europe via Ukraine but this should be agreed by Kyiv and the European countries involved.
The current transit deal expires at the end of the year.
“Of course, in my opinion, the European countries that currently receive gas through this corridor are interested in continuing such cooperation,” Novak, who is in charge of Russia’s energy policy, told reporters on the sidelines of the Valdai Discussion Club in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.
“We are ready to supply (gas), but not much depends on us, so probably this should be negotiated directly between the users and the country through which the transit is provided.”
Russian gas supplies to Europe via Ukraine are relatively small. Russia shipped about 15 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas via Ukraine in 2023 – only 8% of peak Russian gas flows to Europe via various routes in 2018-2019.
Ukraine has refused to renew the deal with Russia due to the ongoing military invasion.
(Reporting by Vladimit Soldatkin in Sochi and Anastasia Lyrchikova in Moscow; Writing by Anastasia Teterevleva; Editing by Mark Trevelyan and David Evans)
