Gazprom to Use Gas as Geopolitical Weapon against Kyiv and Europe

The gas transit via Ukraine after 2024 will depend on the additional volumes purchased from Gazprom by EU traders under the new contracts. This confirms that Ukraine’s fears of Gazprom’s use of gas as a geopolitical weapon against Kyiv and Europe are true, Naftogaz of Ukraine NJSC CEO Yuriy Vitrenko said.

Vitrenko wrote that “if the statements by Germany and Russia about the construction of Nord Stream 2 only on additional volumes were fair,” the volumes of Gazprom gas bought by Europeans must continue going through Ukraine under current contracts.

“The best guarantee that this will be the case is the transfer of gas transmission points under these current contracts to the Ukraine-Russia border, so that later Gazprom gas buyers from the EU can book transit through Ukraine by themselves,” the CEO of Naftogaz said.

However, Gazprom has not yet set up a gas transmission point on its electronic platform at the Ukraine-Russia border, nor has it allowed other exporters from Central Asia and Russia to use its gas transmission system to export gas to European countries via Ukraine. Therefore, there are doubts about Gazprom’s intentions to sell additional volumes to Europe through Ukraine.

“Do you really want to sell additional volumes to Europe? Then why don’t you do it? Let me remind you that Gazprom reserved 25 billion cubic metres less for transit through Ukraine than in 2020. So, sell these 25 billion cubic meters to European companies for transit to Europe on the Russian-Ukrainian border,” Vitrenko said.

Ukraine currently awaits answers to these questions from Russia in the near future and expects them to be taken into account by German and American partners, “when determining whether the Kremlin uses Nord Stream 2 as a geopolitical weapon and whether it should be stopped.”

As a reminder, experts believe that after Nord Stream 2 is completed, Ukraine will not only lose revenues from gas transit (from two to three billion dollars a year) but Ukraine’s GTS will have to be partially preserved or dismantled.

Natalia Tolub