MOSCOW, August 27 (RIA Novosti) — Russia is set to fulfill its European gas delivery contracts, regardless of political situation in transit nations, including Ukraine, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said Wednesday.
«I would like to stress that Russia’s stance on this issue remains unchanged: we will make maximum efforts to fulfill our contract obligations to European importers regardless of current political situation in this or that transit nation," the Russian minister said.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk claimed earlier in the day that Russia was planning to «cut all delivery of energy resources to Ukraine» and «halt gas transit in winter completely, even to European Union consumers.»
Commenting on the reports, Novak said Russia was «perplexed by statements about Russia’s alleged intentions to halt gas transit to EU countries, made by certain Ukrainian politicians.»
«We see them only as an absolutely baseless attempt to misinform, or to deliberately deceive European consumers of the Russian gas," he said.
Earlier Novak said Russia, Ukraine and the European Union have also reached an agreement to reinitiate three-party talks on gas issues that originally took place from mid-April to June to no avail.
The talks on energy issues involving the energy ministers from Ukraine, Russia and the European Union will be held on September 6.
Previous trilateral talks took place from April until mid-June, but did not yield any major results. Kiev insisted on a dramatic reduction in prices for Russian gas, refusing to clear its existing debt, which, by that time, had reached $4.5 billion. Russia suggested a price reduction, but Ukraine did not agree to the conditions of the offer.
Later, Russia stated it was ready to resume the discussion only once Ukraine had paid off its debt. Gazprom switched to prepayment system for gas deliveries to Ukraine on June 16. The most recent estimate puts Ukraine’s debt at $5.3 billion.
