Updated 4:41 p.m. Moscow Time
MOSCOW, September 17 (RIA Novosti) – Ukraine has told the European Commission its energy security was threatened by the alleged reduction in Russian gas supplies to Slovakia, which launched reversed deliveries to Ukraine earlier this month.
Ukrainian Energy Minister Yuriy Prodan wrote a letter to the European Commission, asking it to “raise the matter during the forthcoming three-party talks of Ukraine, the EU and Russia,” the Energy Ministry said in a statement posted on its website Wednesday.
“The reduction is significant and causes the Ukrainian government’s concern, because it may damage energy security of Ukraine and the European Union countries," the statement reads.
On September 11, Russia's gas giant Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov said the company had not reduced gas deliveries to Slovakia, maintaining the supply at the regular level of 12 million cubic meters per day.
Earlier the same day, Slovakia's electricity and gas supplier SPP claimed it was receiving only 90 percent of Russian gas transited through the Ukrainian territory.
In June, Russia introduced prepayment mode of gas deliveries to Ukraine over its $5.3 billion debt and warned that it could reduce gas supplies to Europe shall Kiev siphon off gas transited to Europe through its territory. On July 1, Russian President Vladimir Putin said, however, that Moscow would not aggravate the situation, although it saw the artificiality of reverse gas supplies from Europe to Ukraine.
