Russia and Ukraine officially ended gas transit to Europe via Ukraine on Wednesday. The development ended a decadeslong arrangement and marked the latest casualty of the war between the neighbors.
Russian gas has been supplied to Europe via pipelines crossing Ukraine since the end of the Soviet Union in 1991 in an arrangement that earned revenues for Moscow from the gas and for Kyiv from the transit fees. The latest transit contract expired on Wednesday with Ukraine opting not to extend the deal following Russia's 2022 invasion.
Russian gas accounted for less than 10% of the European Union's gas imports in 2023, down from more than 40% before the war. But some EU members, mostly in the east, still depend heavily on Russian gas for geographical and political reasons.
"We have stopped the transit of Russian gas," Ukraine's Energy Minister German Galushchenko said in a statement, calling it "a historical event." "Russia is losing its markets, it will suffer financial losses," he added.
Russia's Gazprom energy giant said in a separate statement that "Russian gas has not been supplied for transit via Ukraine since 8 a.m. (5 a.m. GMT)." It said it had lost the "technical and legal right" to ship its gas across Ukraine to Europe.
European natural gas prices climbed above 50 euros ($51.78) per megawatt hour for the first time in over a year on Tuesday as buyers in Eastern Europe braced for the halt in supplies.
EU and NATO members Hungary and Slovakia have maintained close ties with the Kremlin despite the conflict.
The halt in Russian gas transit through Ukraine will force some countries to dip deeper into their reserves and seek to import more liquefied natural gas (LNG). But Hungary is set to be largely unaffected by the move, as it receives most of its Russian gas via the Black Sea pipeline, an alternative route that bypasses Ukraine by running via Türkiye and up through the Balkans.
Brussels has downplayed the impact the loss of Russian gas supply will have on the 27-member bloc. "The commission has been working for more than a year specifically on preparing for a scenario without Russian gas transiting via Ukraine," it told Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Tuesday.
The stoppage of gas transit through Ukraine will have "drastic" impact on European Union countries but not on Russia, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said on Wednesday.
The Slovak leader has repeatedly warned that the end of transit would cost Slovakia hundreds of millions of euros in lost transit revenue and higher fees for the import of other gas, and argued it would also lead to a rise in gas and electricity prices in Europe.
The breakaway Moldovan region of Transdniestria cut heating and hot water supplies to households on Wednesday after Russia stopped supplying gas via Ukraine. "There is no heating or hot water," an employee of local energy company Tirasteploenergo told Reuters by phone from Tiraspol, the main city of the breakaway territory. She said she did not know how long the situation would last. Transdniestria is a pro-Russian entity that split from the rest of Moldova after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. A statement on the energy company's website said the heating cuts took effect at 7 a.m. local time on Wednesday, but some facilities such as hospitals were exempt. It urged residents to dress warmly, gather family members together in a single room, hang blankets or thick curtains over windows and balcony doors, and use electric heaters. "It is forbidden to use gas or electric stoves to heat the apartment – this can lead to tragedy," the company said.
Transdniestria has existed generally peacefully side by side with Moldova since a brief post-Soviet war in 1992. Some 1,500 Russian troops are stationed there. The local parliament last month sent an appeal to the Kremlin and the Russian Parliament to reach a new agreement with Ukraine to enable gas supplies to continue. Moscow said at the time it would protect its citizens and soldiers in Transdniestria. Until the expiry of its gas transit deal with Ukraine, Russia was supplying Moldova with about 2 billion cubic meters of gas per year, pumped via Transdniestria. Moldova accuses Russia of exploiting its energy dependence on Moscow in order to destabilize the country, something Moscow denies.
Austria was ready for the ending of a gas transit deal and supplies to the country continue through other sources such as feed-in points in Germany or Italy and from storage facilities, the government said on Wednesday. "We did our homework and were well prepared for this scenario," Austrian Energy Minister Leonore Gewessler said in a statement. "Austria is no longer dependent on gas from Russia – and that is a good thing," she added.
