MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Both Brussels and Moscow want to make direct deliveries of Russian gas to the European Union a reality, the foreign minister stressed.
"We could not wait for a change of the mood in Brussels in respect to the South Stream and we began to look for an alternative, since Europe needs Russian gas and the Ukrainian transit [route] is unreliable. You can be convinced of that every day," Lavrov said during his annual press conference in Moscow.
Kiev has repeatedly stated that the agreement between Russia and Ukraine on the use of its territory to transit gas to Europe would be extended beyond 2019, since there is no alternative to the Ukrainian route. For its part, Russian energy giant Gazprom is working on the construction of offshore gas pipelines that bypass Ukraine.
Moscow has repeatedly voiced concerns over Ukraine's reliability as a key transit route. Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said last spring that Russia would most likely stop gas supplies through Ukraine once the existing contract expired in 2019.
