KYIV: Ukraine on Wednesday halted Russian gas supplies to European customers through its pipeline network after a pre-war transit deal expired at the end of last year.
Herman Halushchenko, Ukraine’s Energy Minister, said Kyiv had stopped the transit in the interest of national security. “Russia is losing markets and will incur financial losses. Europe has already decided to phase out Russian gas, and this aligns with what Ukraine has done today,” he said. Earlier, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy vowed that Kyiv would not allow Moscow to use the transits to earn “additional billions…on the lives of our citizens.” But he had briefly held open the possibility of the gas flows continuing if payments to Russia were withheld.