Kiev Has Not Resumed Gas Deliveries - Donetsk Gas Company

DONETSK (Sputnik) – Kiev has not renewed gas deliveries to the eastern Ukrainian self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic as of 2:00 p.m. (11:00 GMT) Friday, Donbasstransgaz gas complex head Sergei Gorbunov said.

“As of 2:00 p.m., Ukraine has not renewed gas deliveries to the Donetsk People’s Republic,” Donetsk News Agency quoted Gorbunov as saying.

According to Gorbunov, the DPR is using fuel that Russia began delivering on Thursday at a volume of 12 million cubic meters per day.

Earlier in the day, DPR parliament speaker Andrei Purgin said Donetsk had suspended payments to Kiev for gas.

Kiev cut gas deliveries to the DPR and the Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) on Thursday.

Russia’s gas giant Gazprom said it had begun gas deliveries to both republics, though the LPR said Friday morning it had not received any gas from Ukraine or Russia.

Temperatures in the area are below freezing.

At the end of January, the DPR said that Kiev's suspension of gas supplies to one of the republic's districts had left about 30,000 people without heating in their homes. The Ukrainian energy ministry answered that it did not have any information on the issue.

Despite the ongoing conflict between Kiev and Donbas pro-independence fighters, the region is still heavily dependent on Ukrainian electricity and gas supplies. Supply shortages last year became one of the reasons for the severe humanitarian crisis in the region, prompting Russia to send aid convoys with power generators.

Russia has been providing humanitarian assistance to the war-torn Donbas region since August 2014. Since then, the LPR and DPR have received over 20,000 tons of foodstuff, clothes, medicines, power generators and building materials from Moscow.