The European countries increased gas deliveries to Ukraine today as Russia introduced new regulations, according to which Ukraine is now set to pay for Russian gas in advance. If the country, which is now on the verge of bancruptcy, fails to pay for the supplies, Russia threatens to stop deliveries.
Hungary has already increased gas deliveries to Ukraine from 22.5 thousand to 2.46 million cubic metres per day. Thus the Hungarian government kept its promise to do its best to provide Ukraine with gas.
Slovakia says it will deliver 8-10 billion cubic metres per year starting in September.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says his country will pay special attention to this project, even though it does not violate the Russian-Slovak gas agreement.
According to a member of the Energy Research Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Vyacheslav Kulagin, in spite of help promised by European countries Ukraine seems unlikely to substitute Russian gas.
The reason is technical problems, which make it impossible to deliver the 30 billion cubic metres of gas necessary for the Ukrainian economy. Moreover, any alternative to direct gas deliveries from Russia would be more expensive and unprofitable for European suppliers, he underlines.
