(Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin promised Slovakia that Gazprom would find other ways to deliver contracted gas to Slovakia after ending its transit through Ukraine, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said on Friday.
After Ukraine decided not to allow Russian natural gas to flow through Ukraine from January 1, Fico met with Putin in Moscow on December 22 to discuss natural gas and the war in Ukraine.
Fico has threatened retaliation against Kiev because Slovakia wants to continue receiving Russian gas through Ukraine to reduce costs and continue to earn transit revenue from gas shipments to Europe.
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“I discussed with Putin a contract we have with Gazprom, which stipulates that they must provide us with gas in a certain way,” Fico told a parliamentary committee.
“We were able to push something through the south flow (the route through Turkey), but so far we have storage and consumption in Slovakia is secure.”
Fico said Putin had given assurances that Russia would meet its obligations despite the limited capacity of the TurkStream pipeline and connections that carry Russian gas to Europe through Turkey.
“President Putin assured that they will fulfill their commitments,” Fico said.
Some of the gas could be transported through Western Europe, Fico said, referring to Slovakia’s pipeline connections to neighboring gas grids in central and western Europe.
Fico believes that Europe suffered billions of euros in losses because some 13.5 billion cubic meters of natural gas did not flow through Ukraine last year, including about 3 cubic meters consumed by Slovakia, leading to higher gas prices.
Fico said Russian gas was close to an agreement to continue shipping through Ukraine before entering Ukraine under a deal involving Azerbaijan or Slovak gas importer SPP, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky refused to extend it at an EU summit in December. Any flow of natural gas through Ukraine.
(Reporting by Jan Lopatka in Prague; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)
