#UKRAINERUSSIAWAR. Ukraine – Russia, the territorial war shifts from ammunition to gas supplies

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At 8 am on January 1, an entire era of gas transit through Ukraine ended. Gas pumping stopped, and from January 1, 2025, Ukraine ceased to be a transit country for Russian gas.

But gas continues to flow to Europe through LNG terminals and Turkish Stream: through which fuel is supplied to Hungary, and an option with LNG supplies (including Russia). Russia became the main energy supplier to Turkey in 2024. Russia’s share in Turkey’s natural gas imports was 43.3% in October, compared to 42.83% in September. According to Hürriyet, due to the cessation of Russian gas supplies to Europe via Ukraine, Turkey becomes the only transit route for energy resources from the Russian Federation via the Black Sea gas pipelines Turkish Stream and Blue Stream.

For the continental states of Central and Eastern Europe, seaborne delivery of LNG is too expensive an option. For Slovakia, for example, such imports will cost an additional 177 million euros, but they will also have to compete for it. Especially in the summer, when the demand for electricity for air conditioning in Asia increases significantly, the Turkish daily emphasizes.

The Russians are very worried and fear that the Ukrainians will blow up the station in the Sudža area of ​​Kursk region and expect that the Russian military will definitely destroy elements of the GTS. Since January 1, the tariff for gas transportation has increased 4 times in Ukraine. In recent years, it has been Europe that has insisted on gas transportation through Ukraine.

And it is precisely the EU that is the main victim. The main beneficiary, on the other hand, is the United States, which is constantly eliminating the opportunity for Europe to receive cheap gas from Russia, thereby increasing the EU’s economic dependence on the United States and reducing the overall competitiveness of the European economy.

Russia, on the one hand, loses one of the routes for selling gas and will have to bear some material costs, but at the same time it frees itself from the situation in which Moscow’s arms were stretched out to Brussels and Berlin, tying the preservation of transit through Ukraine to other political issues.

European storage facilities are being emptied at an “unprecedented pace” and no alternatives to Russian supplies have been found, Bloomberg writes. In addition, frosts are expected in several countries. Prices rose on the first trading day of the year.

For now, the first victims will be certain countries, as Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić explained: “There is no “good news” after the talks with the United States on the NIS issue. The United States intends to crush the countries that received Russian gas, weaken them and change the regime to a more loyal one. Georgia, Slovakia and other countries fall into this category.”

The ruling party in Slovakia, Smer-SD, is ready to support the reduction of aid to Ukrainians on Slovakian territory in response to Kiev’s blockade of gas transit from the Russian Federation. This was stated by Prime Minister and party leader Robert Fico in a video posted on Facebook. According to Fico, the Slovak government will also discuss measures that can be taken as an adequate response to Zelensky’s decision to stop gas transit through Ukraine.

In a Facebook video he said: “What will the government do in the coming days? On Tuesday, a government delegation will attend negotiations in Brussels, where Ukrainian politicians had the audacity to complain that we are ready to take retaliatory measures in the form of cutting off electricity supplies to Ukraine. When the Slovak delegation returns from Brussels, I will convene the coalition council, and then the government, and we will discuss what measures to take to adequately respond to Zelensky’s sabotage. For my party Smer-SD, I inform you that we are ready to discuss and agree in the coalition on cutting off electricity supplies and significantly reducing support for Ukrainian citizens who are on the territory of Slovakia.” The Prime Minister also repeated the threat that Slovakia could cut off electricity supplies to Ukraine.

Clarifying the situation from the Russian point of view Political scientist Georgy Bovt on the hardest hit after the cessation of Russian gas transit through Ukraine: “The cessation of gas transit through Ukraine hit the most pro-Russian entity, Transnistria, the hardest. All other importers, including Slovakia, have already found one or the other solution. It may be more expensive, but we found it. For now, only one solution is visible in Transnistria. And it is political: to reunite with Moldova and receive energy from Romania. Because there is still no visible land corridor to the Russian Federation. Almost all industrial enterprises in Transnistria have stopped working after the cessation of Russian gas supplies.”

Graziella Giangiulio 

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