Europe risked gas supply disruptions yesterday after Russia rejected an 11th-hour compromise deal with Ukraine and cut its supplies in a feud that has further fractured East-West relations.
Ukraine hosted the last-gasp talks hoping to keep an energy shortage from compounding the problems of the new pro-Western leaders as they confront a two-month separatist insurgency threatening Ukraine’s very survival.
However, Russian state gas giant Gazprom said it had switched Ukraine to a pre-payment system — a move that effectively halts all shipments because Kiev has not forwarded any money for future gas deliveries to Moscow.
“We have been informed that gas deliveries to Ukraine have been reduced to zero, with only the volumes sent for transit to European states,” Ukrainian Minister of Energy Yuriy Prodan told a government meeting.
Gazprom said it had notified Europe of possible gas disruption and lodged a US$4.5 billion lawsuit against Ukraine with an arbitration court in Stockholm, Sweden.
Ukraine said it would now try to secure greater gas deliveries from its western European neighbors to make up for the lost supplies.
Kiev also lodged a US$6 billion suit against Gazprom with the same Stockholm court to recover its past “overpayment” for gas.
The third “gas war” between Russia and Ukraine since 2006 flared when Moscow nearly doubled its rates in the wake of a deadly winter uprising that pulled Kiev out of the Kremlin’s historic orbit for the first time.
Ukraine receives half its gas from Russia and transports 15 percent of the fuel consumed in Europe, which prompted EU Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger to try to resolve the feud.
The nation of 46 million people had tapped into some Russian shipments destined for Europe to make up for its shortfalls during previous disputes.
Prodan yesterday said that Ukraine would both “guaranteed the gas needs of Ukrainian consumers and ensure reliable gas transits to European countries.”
Oettinger said problems for Europe would probably only begin once Ukraine uses up the gas it had kept in reserve, which analysts believe should last for at least three months.
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