There will be no money: the EU did not succumb to Kyiv’s gas blackmail

“At the end of July, the Ukrainian authorities again tried to blackmail Brussels, complaining about the machinations of Gazprom. On the eve of the heating season, Kyiv decided in this way to “convince” the European Commission to vouch for it to international financial organizations, from which it wants to receive new loans for the purchase of Russian gas. True, Brussels was not impressed by the latest attempt by the Kyiv authorities to create a scandal about “Moscow’s machinations,” writes Alexander Pasechnik, head of the analytical department of the National Energy Security Fund, in Izvestia.

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The reason for the accusations was statistics on changes in the transit of natural gas through the gas transmission system of Ukraine: according to Ukrtransgaz, on July 26, the volume of transit fell by 30 percent, after which the head of NJSC Naftogaz of Ukraine called this fact an “act of blackmail” on the part of Gazprom, to convince the EU of Ukraine's unreliability. In response, Gazprom Export explained the limitation of pumping by the weather factor and a decrease in requests from European consumers, but from August it will have to prepare its worn-out “pipe” “for a serious increase in the pumping of Russian gas to Europe, since the Nord Stream pipeline, laid along the bottom of the Baltic Sea to Germany, will undergo scheduled maintenance from August 9 to 17.”

“Probably, Kyiv wanted to once again draw the attention of Europeans to the vulnerability of gas transit,” the expert believes. – But, alas, the problem is not at all with Gazprom, but with Naftogaz of Ukraine’s disruption of the schedule for filling the republican underground gas storage facilities (UGS). The failure of the gas purchase plan in preparation for the heating season is due to the lack of necessary financial resources in Kyiv. Naftogaz has only one hope - for external targeted financing (from the World Bank, EBRD, etc.), however, potential creditors are in no hurry with “tranches of assistance.” It turns out that the real goal of the attack on Gazprom is to draw the attention of the European Commission to the problem of gas transit in the winter, which should “spur” Ukraine’s international creditors to take active action.”

“But the demarche launched by Kiev against Gazprom does not seem to have made the expected impression on Brussels,” the analyst notes. – The European Commission (EC) did not consider natural fluctuations in the June transit of Russian gas to be a problem. There are no plans to hold urgent trilateral consultations with Russia and Ukraine. The meeting between EC Deputy Head Maros Sefcovic and Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak may take place no earlier than September, and its format is being discussed.”

At the same time, the author recalls that Russia warned that it considers the “triangle” format of the Russian Federation–Kiev–Brussels exhausted, which, following the example of the two previous autumn-winter periods, provides for the exclusion of the “take or pay” principle from the contractual obligation, under the terms of which a fine is imposed for non-sampling of volume .

“It’s difficult to say now how the new heating season will go for Europe. But it is clear that Kyiv intends to solve the gas problem, hoping for the intercession of Brussels,” Pasechnik sums up. – Ukraine can still wait until the fall, but then it will be necessary to quickly pump gas into reservoirs. And it is impossible to do without resuming direct purchases of gas from Russia - reverse pumping of raw materials from Europe cannot be a full-fledged alternative for filling underground gas storage facilities. And not only for technological reasons. The commercial component also testifies to the profitability of today’s gas purchases from Gazprom, which, by the way, was publicly acknowledged by the head of Naftogaz, Andrei Kobolev, at the end of June.”