The five-year gas transit agreement between Russia and Ukraine expired on Wednesday, with Kyiv declining to extend it due to the ongoing war.
A Gazprom employee walks beside pipelines at a gas measuring station located at the
Russia-Ukraine border in Sudzha, near Kursk.
Russian natural gas exports through Ukraine to several European countries have been suspended after Kyiv declined to renew a transit agreement that expired on Wednesday.
Ukraine had previously indicated that it would not extend the five-year transit deal due to the ongoing military conflict with Russia.
"We have halted the transit of Russian gas. This is a historic moment. Russia is losing its markets and will face financial losses. Europe has already decided to move away from Russian gas," stated Ukraine’s Energy Minister German Galushchenko.
Russia’s energy giant Gazprom announced that gas exports to Europe ceased at 8 a.m. Moscow time (05:00 GMT) following the expiration of the transit deal.
"Due to the repeated and clearly expressed refusal of the Ukrainian side to renew these agreements, Gazprom no longer has the technical and legal capability to supply gas for transit through Ukraine starting January 1, 2025," Gazprom stated on the Telegram messaging app.
Ukraine has been a transit route for Russian natural gas to several European countries, including Slovakia, Moldova, and Hungary.
Meanwhile, Brussels has downplayed the impact of the loss of Russian gas supplies on the 27-member bloc.
“The Commission has been preparing for over a year for a scenario where Russian gas is not transiting through Ukraine,” it told AFP on Tuesday.
Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico criticized the decision on Wednesday, warning that Europe would bear the consequences.
“Halting gas transit via Ukraine will significantly affect everyone in the EU but not the Russian Federation,” Fico stated in a video message on Facebook.
Fico, who has expressed criticism towards the EU’s support for Kyiv, visited Moscow last week to meet with Putin in anticipation of a gas stoppage.
The situation is most critical in Moldova, which borders Ukraine and faces challenges from Russian-backed separatists within its territory.
The small nation had already declared a 60-day state of emergency earlier this month in anticipation of Kyiv's expected gas cut.
“Moscow has once again resorted to energy blackmail to influence the 2025 parliamentary elections and undermine our European ambitions,” said Moldova’s President Maia Sandu.
The termination of Russia's oldest gas route to Europe marks the end of a decade of tense relations following Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.
“It ultimately ends Russia’s previous dominance in the EU energy market. In the past, it leveraged that dominance to impose economically damaging higher prices or threatened to cut off supplies in the middle of winter,” reported Al Jazeera’s Jonah Hull from Kyiv.
“And, of course, this has come at a cost to the European Union, which has had to shift towards more expensive liquefied natural gas, negatively impacting the bloc's economic output and raising concerns about its future global competitiveness.”
Following the outbreak of the military conflict in Ukraine in 2022, the EU intensified its efforts to reduce dependence on Russian energy by seeking alternative sources.
As of December 1, the EU received less than 14 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas from Russia via Ukraine, a significant decline from 65 bcm per year when the last five-year contract began in 2020. The European Commission has stated that this volume can be fully replaced by liquefied natural gas and non-Russian pipeline imports.
Russia continues to export gas through the TurkStream pipeline, which runs under the Black Sea.
Hungary, which, like Slovakia, has maintained a friendly relationship with Moscow, receives the majority of its Russian gas imports through the Black Sea pipeline. Consequently, Budapest is likely to remain largely unaffected by Ukraine’s decision.
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