Naftogaz transfers $15 mln advance payment to Gazprom

As previously reported by UNIAN, Gazprom has been restricting supplies of gas to Ukraine for the last few days. In this regard, Naftogaz Ukrainy warned Gazprom that it cannot make further advance payments for natural gas without guarantees that the Russian gas monopolist will stick to the Brussels protocol.

Naftogaz has also said that Gazprom's decision to supply gas to the territories occupied by the militants runs contrary to the existing contract.

As previously stated by Naftogaz CEO Kobolev, Ukraine would not pay bills charged to Kyiv for gas supplied by Gazprom to the occupied territories in the Donbas.

In connection with such situation, Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of Energy Union Maros Sefcovic sent letters to the energy ministers of Ukraine and Russia to invite them to gas talks in Brussels on March 2.

Both the Russian and the Ukrainian side expressed their willingness to participate in negotiations.

Ukraine agreed with Russia in Brussels last October a protocol on gas deliveries. The agreement, brokered by the EU, calls for Ukraine to pay Gazprom in advance for supplies of gas. The current agreement is set to run out at the end of March.

Russia has several times threatened to cut gas supplies to Ukraine, and Kyiv itself stopped taking gas from Russia last summer, instead switching to “reverse flows” of gas from Poland, Slovakia and Hungary.

Each of these three countries came under various forms of pressure from Russia, and for a time stopped, or threatened to stop their supplies to Ukraine.

Around 50% of the gas Russia exports to the EU comes via pipelines that transit Ukraine. Russia has cut supplies to Ukraine several times before, notably in the winter of 2009, when Russia cut gas supplies to Ukraine over a pricing dispute, in turn restricting supplies to southeastern Europe and other EU countries.