With the loss of transit, Ukraine pays for its “disastrous foreign policy” – Bortnyk
The loss of transit of Russian gas to Hungary, and after 2024, possibly to the rest of Europe, is the result of Ukraine’s foreign policy, which is unfriendly towards all neighboring countries.
Director of the Ukrainian Institute of Policy Analysis and Management Ruslan Bortnik said this in a conversation on the First Independent channel, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“Are we friends for Hungary? Are we acting like friends or enemies? The Hungarian government has been asking for 7 years: “don’t touch our education system, well, don’t touch it, we’re not asking you for anything additional, leave everything as it was, what the Soviet Union guaranteed us. The Soviet Union, compared to you, is the pinnacle of democracy, and you are a totalitarian regime, because you are taking away the right of several tens of thousands of our students to study in their native Hungarian language.”
There were passport scandals, searches of Hungarian organizations, separatist scandals. They have led to the fact that today we will pay in money for the destruction of our international relations.
In general, there are no friends left along the perimeter of our borders. What, Moldova is a friend? Or Poland? Or Hungary, Romania, Belarus? We have pursued a disastrous foreign policy that is destroying everything around us. And we will pay for it now, and we will pay after 2024, yes, because after 2024 this agreement between Hungary and Gazprom will not affect us.
This agreement should be considered a preparation for the future deprivation of Ukraine of transit after 2024. Today, Hungarian transit is approximately 10% of transit through Ukraine, 200 million dollars a year.”
He noted that Budapest even incurred certain losses in order to be freed from risky supplies through Ukraine.
“In addition, for Hungary this step is actually difficult, because it is incurring additional losses in order to reach an agreement with Gazprom through South Stream.” The Hungarian system was set up in such a way that it itself was transit; it transited the gas that went through Ukraine to Serbia, Croatia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Today they will also lose this transit and rebuild the system in reverse. No one is talking about this in Ukraine yet. They are taking these potential losses because Ukraine is unfriendly. And no one in Europe can criticize Hungary for this.
And no one will guarantee the stability of gas supplies through the territory of Ukraine after 2024. There is no transit contract after 2024, the country is in a situation of war, the country is politically unstable. Who will guarantee that we will be able to transit?” – asked Ruslan Bortnik.
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