KIEV, December 2 (Sputnik) – Kiev is relieved to see that the European Union is over with Russia's South Stream pipeline project to supply gas to central and southern Europe, the spokesperson for the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Tuesday.
"We consider the EU decision to abandon the [South Stream] project logic and balanced," Foreign Ministry's Yevhen Perebyinis said at a briefing.
Perebyinis emphasized that Kiev had a clear-cut stance on South Stream since Russia launched what he called its purely political project, which allegedly lacked both economic feasibility and grounds for its stated aim to diversify energy supplies to Europe.
"Ukraine has always been a trustworthy energy transit country. Our intention is to fulfill all the duties on energy transit to Europe," the Ukrainian spokesman claimed.
Russia previously accused Ukraine of gas theft, saying parts of gas supplies to Europe had vanished while crossing Ukrainian territory.
On December 1, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Moscow would not continue the implementation of the South Stream pipeline because of the European Commission's "non-constructive" stance. Later that day Alexei Miller, the CEO of Russia's energy giant Gazprom, confirmed that Russia was closing the South Stream project and had no plans to revive it.
In 2012, Gazprom announced the construction of a South Stream pipeline across the Black Sea to reduce the chances of Russian gas being delivered to central and southern Europe through Ukraine being interrupted. The pipeline was expected to be fully operational by 2018.
The European Commission assumed a critical stance toward the project, claiming that it violated the EU Third Energy Package, which stipulates that pipelines in its member countries cannot belong to natural gas producers. Moscow insists that the construction of the pipeline does not contradict the regulations.
