UNIAN
The war in the east of Ukraine unleashed by the Russian-backed militants has cost about $6 billion to Russian gas monopoly Gazprom, Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk said during the meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers on Wednesday.
"The war against Ukraine as a whole has cost Gazprom $6 billion, and the scheme of gas supplies that we have built up over the last year can be called energy independent," Yatseniuk said.
Ukraine, long reliant on Russia for the bulk of its gas supplies, has been scrambling over the past year to reduce its energy dependence on its giant neighbor. Kyiv has secured “reverse” gas supplies (or supplies of gas from the EU to Ukraine) with Poland, Hungary and Slovakia, and sharply cut the amount of gas it buys from Russia.
In turn, Russia has said it will stop transiting gas to Europe via Ukraine completely from 2019, when Moscow’s current gas transit contract with Kyiv expires.