The agreement between Russia’s state-owned company Gazprom and Ukraine to send gas to European countries through pipeline has now broken. According to Al Jazeera, Gazprom has confirmed this. With this, the last remaining business and political agreement between Russia and Ukraine has now ended. Due to the breakdown of the agreement, the export of Russian natural gas to many countries of Europe has now stopped. Russian company Gazprom used to send natural gas to many countries including Slovakia, Moldova and Hungary even during the war under the transit agreement. Ukraine’s Energy Minister German Galushenko said in a statement – We have stopped the transit of Russian gas. This is a historic event. Russia is losing its markets, it will suffer financial losses. Ukraine refused to extend the agreement, Slovakia threatened The transit agreement to send gas to European countries started in 2019. It was to end on 31 December 2024. Ukraine had refused to renew this agreement. Slovakia’s PM Robert Fico and Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban had been trying to convince Ukraine not to cancel the transit agreement for several weeks. Their efforts proved insufficient. Both these European leaders are considered Putin supporters. Due to the fear of not getting gas, Robert Fico had reached Moscow to meet Putin last week. He had said that if Ukraine did not renew the transit deal, Slovakia would stop the supply of electricity to Ukraine. On this threat, Ukraine had said that it does not care about it. Ukraine’s Energy Minister German Galushenko said on Monday that if Slovakia does this, Ukraine will compensate for it by importing electricity from Romania and Poland. Moldova’s situation is the worst. Moldova’s situation is the most serious. This country is cut off from Ukraine’s border and is battling Russia-backed separatists. Due to the fear of cancellation of the transit agreement, a 60-day emergency was imposed in Moldova in early December. Unlike Moldova, Slovakia and Hungary are not facing as many problems as these countries are still buying Russian gas from the TurkStream pipeline laid in the Black Sea. Russian gas supply stopped after 60 years. Thousands of kilometers long underground pipelines are laid in Ukraine. These were laid during the Soviet era. For about 60 years, about 150 billion cubic meters (BCM) of Russian natural gas was sent to Western Europe every year with the help of these pipes. After the Russia-Ukraine war started, the countries of the European Union reduced their dependence on Russian fossil fuels. At the same time, Russia reduced the supply of gas through these pipelines to 40 BCM. In 2023, this supply reduced further to about 15 BCM, which has now become zero.
