“The risk of disruptions is extremely high,” Alexei Miller told the Rossiya-24 TV.
Earlier in the day, Gazprom started prepaid gas deliveries to Ukraine following the receipt of $378 million from Ukraine's national energy company Naftogaz.
On Monday, Russia's Energy Minister Alexander Novak stated that recommencing gas supplies to Ukraine will reduce the risk of transit disruptions. However, Novak mentioned that in order to secure uninterrupted deliveries to Europe during the winter, Kiev still has to buy around 3 billion cubic meters of gas from Gazprom.
The two sides agreed on a "winter package" deal for gas deliveries in October, securing Russian gas deliveries to Ukraine until March 2015. According to the agreement, Kiev is to pay $3.1 billion of its gas debt to Russia by the end of 2014. In November, Ukrainian state energy company Naftogaz paid off $1.45 billion of its debt to Gazprom.
