Slovakia: Putin pledged to continue supplying Slovakia with natural gas, says Fico

Russian President Vladimir Putin promised Slovakia that Russian Gazprom would find alternate ways to proviso state to Slovakia done contracts aft the extremity of its transit via Ukraine, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico stated today.

Fico met with Putin successful Moscow connected December 22 to sermon the state contented and the warfare successful Ukraine pursuing Ukraine’s determination not to let the travel of Russian state done Ukrainian territory starting January 1.

Fico has threatened to instrumentality retaliatory measures against Kyiv arsenic Slovakia wants to proceed receiving Russian state via Ukraine to support costs debased and support revenues arsenic a transit state for state shipments further into Europe.

“I spoke with Putin astir a declaration betwixt america and Gazprom, which states that they are obliged to proviso america with state somehow,” Fico said successful a parliamentary committee. “We tin propulsion immoderate [amount of gas] done the confederate watercourse (the way via Turkey), but for now, we person storage, and Slovak depletion is secured.”

Fico said that Putin guaranteed that Russia would fulfill its obligations, though the capableness of the TurkStream pipeline and the interconnector carrying Russian state done Turkey to Europe is limited. “President Putin guaranteed they would grant their commitments,” Fico said.

Some state could beryllium distributed done Western Europe, Fico said, referring to Slovakia’s pipeline connections with state networks successful neighboring Central and Western European countries.

Fico has said that Europe suffered losses worthy billions of euros owed to the summation successful state prices caused by the lack of astir 13.5 cardinal cubic meters of state that flowed done Ukraine past year, including astir 3 cardinal cubic meters of state for Slovak consumption.

Fico stated that an statement was adjacent to continuing transit done Ukraine, with Russian state changing ownership earlier entering Ukraine nether an statement that would impact Azerbaijan oregon the Slovak state import institution SPP. However, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky rejected immoderate hold of state travel done Ukraine astatine the EU acme successful December.

Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry responded contiguous to Slovakia’s caller disapproval regarding the cessation of Russian state transit done the country, stating that the occupation lies with Russia and the unwillingness of “certain politicians” to extremity their dependence connected Moscow.