Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico warned of a gas crisis on Friday as Ukraine continued to refuse to extend the transit of natural gas through its territory after a contract expired at the end of the year.
Ukraine has repeatedly said it will not continue the gas transit deal with Russia because the two countries are at war.
Slovakia, which has a long-term contract with Russian oil giant Gazprom, has tried to continue receiving gas through Ukraine, saying buying elsewhere would cost it 220 million euros ($228.73 million). ) plus transit costs.
Mr. Fico insisted on this subject on Thursday during a European Union summit in Brussels, also attended by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who reaffirmed that his country would not continue to transit Russian gas.
“We are clearly facing a gas crisis thanks to President Zelenskiy,” Fico said at the start of a press conference in Bratislava on Friday, without giving further details.
Before the EU summit, Mr Fico had discussed alternative solutions in which the gas that Ukraine transits would not be Russian, but would belong to someone else.
But just after the summit, Mr. Fico declared late Thursday that Mr. Zelenskiy had ruled out any gas transit. Mr. Fico also rejected Mr. Zelenskiy’s suggestion that kyiv might consider continuing the transit of Russian gas on the condition that Moscow does not receive money for the fuel before the end of the war.
The European Commission has said it is not interested in continued Russian gas flows through Ukraine.
Mr Fico said he could not rule out that Slovakia would have to “think about reciprocal measures” without gas transit.
In recent years, Slovakia has supplied energy to Ukraine, including electricity and diesel, and provided humanitarian aid to its neighbor.
However, Fico ended state military aid to kyiv, said the war with Russia had no military solution and criticized sanctions against Moscow.
Slovakia says stopping gas flows in early 2025 would not threaten its supplies due to sufficient storage, but would affect transit operations and warned it would impact gas prices. walk.
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