OREANDA-NEWSUkraine accused Russia of preparing for a gas war. In Kiev, it was indicated that for this purpose Moscow was pumping large volumes of raw materials into gas storage facilities in Europe. At the same time, as it turned out, Ukraine does not have a plan in case of a transit stop. The current contract ends in 2019. In May, negotiations will be held on the extension of the contract, but it will be very difficult to reach agreement, analysts admit.

Naftogaz accused Russia of preparing a new gas war. Thus, gas transit volumes through Ukraine are growing, which is connected with the injection of Russian gas into gas storages in Europe, said Yuri Vitrenko, executive director of NAK Naftogaz Ukrainy, in an interview with the skrypin.ua YouTube channel. According to him, this means that Moscow intends to cover the needs of European customers at the expense of reserved gas after the termination of transit.

“If you multiply daily volumes, then we will reach 100-110 billion cubic meters. That is, they are now pumping more gas. This may mean, most likely, that they are preparing to interrupt transit and they want to have more gas in storage facilities in Europe, ”he said.

Meanwhile, Ukraine is not ready to stop the transit of Russian gas. According to Vitrenko, Naftogaz simply does not have a technical model for the operation of the Ukrainian gas transmission system (GTS) in this case. He also added that Ukraine will provide capacity of 90 billion cubic meters. in year. However, according to him, some flexibility is allowed: Gazprom may book more or less in a given year, but on average it should be 60 billion cubic meters.

The current contact between Naftogaz and Gazprom on the transit of Russian gas through Ukraine ends in 2019. It is not possible to agree on the extension or signing of the contract. Earlier, Gazprom talked about the desire to maintain transit at a level of up to 15 billion cubic meters of gas from 2020. In this case, the monopolist will be able to continue gas supplies to Moldova and some EU countries.