OREANDA-NEWS. Yuriy Vitrenko, the CEO of Naftogaz of Ukraine, spoke on the essence of the proposals made by the company during negotiations with Russian corporation Gazprom for resolving issues related to the settlement of disputes in the Stockholm arbitration.

According to Vitrenko, to demonstrate its constructive position, Naftogaz officially expressed its readiness to consider the possibility of repayment of the debt by Gazprom recognized by the arbitration institution at the expense of gas supplies.

The total amount of debt to be repaid, taking into account non-payment of interest, is estimated at 3 billion US dollars. Vitrenko said earlier that “such a lot of gas” could be obtained for such a great sum of money, and Ukraine needs many years to import such a volume of fuel.

Besides, Naftogaz, according to Vitrenko, expressed its readiness to withdraw claims in which the arbitration tribunal has not yet taken decision, if Gazprom concludes a long-term gas transit contract that covers all expenses of the Ukrainian side and compensation for losses for Gazprom's default under current contracts.

“Here, as you see, we also have a constructive position: you should cover expenses, even without economic profits, and we will not sue. Now we are ready to return to the trilateral talks and tell the Europeans how thoroughly we had been discussing these issues,” Vitrenko wrote.

Being asked to tell how Gazprom reacted to these proposals, a representative of Naftogaz replied that he would not comment on the position of the Russian company.

Gazprom’s report available to RBC news agency says that the head of the company, Alexey Miller, said he expected the Ukrainian side to take a constructive position on a range of issues of interaction in the gas sector, “including economically based conditions for the transit of Russian gas through Ukraine since 2020.”