Since yesterday, Moscow has stopped its gas exports, passing through Ukraine and destined for Europe. The Russian giant Gazprom announced, on January 1, 2025, the closure of the oldest gas route from Russia to Europe, in accordance with the expiration of the gas transit agreement and putting an end to a decade of disruption in relations between the two parties due to geopolitical tensions linked to the destiny of Crimea.
Russian gas pipelines passing through Ukraine date back to the Soviet era, and since the dispute over the question of Crimea and Ukraine, Europe has increased efforts to diversify its sources of gas supply. gas and limit its dependence on Russia. The non-renewal of the transit agreement was the fault of kyiv, which refused to serve as a transit point for Russian gas. “We have stopped the transit of Russian gas.
It is a historic event. Russia is losing its markets, it will suffer financial losses,” declared Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushchenko. However, the financial losses will even affect Ukraine, which will forgo 800 million dollars per year in transit costs for Russian gas. Gazprom will lose, according to estimates, 5 billion dollars in gas sales.
The Ukrainian refusal provoked the ire of Slovakia, whose supplies depend on this passage, as well as Austria. Both countries looked for other alternatives. Transnistria, a region of Moldova, neighboring Ukraine, has decided to cut off the heating and hot water supply to households since yesterday. Residents were asked to dress warmly and bring family members together in one room along with other instructions to avoid suffering from the cold.
Hungary, for its part, will continue to receive Russian gas via the TurkStream gas pipelines, passing under the Black Sea. This cutting of energy links between Russia and Europe augurs a new energy map on the old continent which is going through a harsh winter while its gas reserves (70%) have not reached the expected threshold (90% ).
The European Commission claims to have prepared for this interruption by declaring via its spokesperson that “the European gas infrastructure is sufficiently flexible to supply gas of non-Russian origin”.
And added: “It has been reinforced by significant new LNG import capacities since 2022.”
Since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine in 2022, Europe has not stopped sourcing from different energy sources, notably American, Norwegian, Algerian and Qatari gas. Note that Russia shipped some 15 billion cubic meters of gas via Ukraine in 2023, compared to 65 billion cubic meters in 2020.
