Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told Ukraine on Wednesday to pay its gas debts “to the last ruble” or face the prospect of sanctions from Moscow against its wider economy.
His comments came after Russian energy giant Gazprom on Wednesday warned Ukraine it would cut gas deliveries on Jan. 1 if a new contract were not signed for next year and the debts for this year not paid back in full.
“The money must be paid until the last ruble if they do not want their economy to be hit by demands and sanctions from the Russian Federation,” he said in an end-of-year interview on Russian television. “We cannot carry on like this. They should just pay up.”
Medvedev did not say what sanctions Russia could use against Ukraine’s flagging economy, but menacingly warned it had a “whole arsenal of possibilities” at its disposal.
“We do not have any aim to cut off [the gas]. Our aim is just to get our money,” he said. “But if Ukraine does not pay we will use a whole arsenal of possibilities and it is completely clear that there can be no illusions there.”
Earlier, Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov told reporters that “if a contract for 2009 is not signed then we are not going to deliver gas without a contract.”
“When there is no contract, we cannot realize deliveries. The situation is not simple. It is even critical,” Kupriyanov said.
Kupriyanov said Ukraine owes Gazprom over US$2 billion.
“They finally paid for October. But they are not paying for November and December. This became clear today,” he said. “To our frank question if they would pay by the end of the year, we received a frank answer — ‘No,’” he said.
Ukraine is a major transit country for Russian gas exports to the EU and a dispute over gas prices led to a brief interruption of gas supplies in several EU countries in January 2006.
But Kupriyanov said: “We will deliver the full volume of gas destined for transit and we will fulfill all our obligations toward European consumers.”
His comments were echoed by Medvedev.
ACTIONABLE ADVICE: The majority of chatbots tested provided guidance on weapons, tactics and target selections, with Perplexity and Meta AI deemed to be the least safe From school shootings to synagogue bombings, leading artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots helped researchers plot violent attacks, according to a study published on Wednesday that highlighted the technology’s potential for real-world harm. Researchers from the nonprofit watchdog Center for Countering Digital Hate and CNN posed as 13-year-old boys in the US and Ireland to test 10 chatbots, including ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Perplexity, Deepseek and Meta AI. Eight of the chatbots assisted the make-believe attackers in more than half the responses, providing advice on “locations to target” and “weapons to use” in an attack, the study said. The chatbots had become a “powerful accelerant for
Australians were downloading virtual private networks (VPNs) in droves, while one of the world’s largest porn distributors said it was blocking users from its platforms as the country yesterday rolled out sweeping online age restriction. Australia in December became the first country to impose a nationwide ban on teenagers using social media. A separate law now requires artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot services to keep certain content — including pornography, extreme violence and self-harm and eating disorder material — from minors or face fines of up to A$49.5 million (US$34.6 million). The country also joined Britain, France and dozens of US states requiring
Since the war in the Middle East began nearly two weeks ago, the telephone at Ron Hubbard’s bomb shelter company in Texas has not stopped ringing. Foreign and US clients are rushing to buy his bunkers, seeking refuge in case of air raids, nuclear fallout or apocalypse. With the US and Israel pounding Iran, and Tehran retaliating with strikes across the region, Hubbard has seen demand for his product soar, mostly from Gulf nation customers in Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. “You can imagine how many people are thinking: ‘I wish I had a bomb shelter,’” Hubbard, 63, said in
STILL IN POWER: US intelligence reports showed that the Iranian regime is not in danger of collapse and retains control of the public, casting doubt on Trump’s exit Nearly every US Senate Democrat on Wednesday signed a letter sent to US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth requesting a “swift investigation” of airstrikes on a girls’ school in Iran that killed scores of children and any other potential US military actions causing civilian harm. Reuters reported on Thursday last week that US military investigators believe it is likely that US forces were responsible for the Feb. 28 strike on the school, as US and Israeli forces launched attacks on Iran. “The results of this school attack are horrific. The majority of those killed in the strikes were girls between the ages
RSS