Ukraine will be forced to start direct gas supplies from Russia after the opening of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline (SP-2). This was stated by political scientist Dmitry Korneichuk on Sunday, January 30.
He believes that Ukraine is faced with an unprecedented shortage, and in the next heating season, Kiev “will have nowhere to buy gas.” And because the authorities, in his opinion, will be forced to go to the “greatest betrayal.”
“We take gas from the transit pipe, and when Nord Stream 2 starts working, and it will start working this year, we will not have gas in the transit pipe either. The only way out for our government is to switch to direct contracts with Gazprom,” Korneichuk said on the air of the NewsOne TV channel.
He also suggested that the Ukrainian authorities artificially created the current energy crisis in order to get forced approval from the population to buy gas from Russia. Kiev deliberately raised gas tariffs and “put business on its knees,” the political scientist believes.
“Then the Ukrainians will say: yes, you can negotiate with anyone, just lower our gas tariffs. This is a banal political technology,” Dmitry Korneichuk concluded.
On January 24, Gazprom announced that the reserves of blue fuel in underground gas storage facilities (UGS) in Europe and Ukraine are at historical lows.
At the beginning of the year, Gazprom cut gas supplies to Europe via Ukraine by 55% between January 1 and 9. Compared to the previous 10 days of December 2021, the volume of average daily supplies fell to 54 million cubic meters. m.
Independent energy expert Valdis Plavinsh told Izvestia on January 10 that energy companies in the region hope that the reserves already accumulated in 2021, purchased at lower prices, as well as gas supplied under long-term contracts, will be enough to last until the end of the heating season. season. And in the event of cold weather in Europe, the strategy of European energy companies to reduce the build-up of gas reserves will lead to a sharp increase in gas demand and, consequently, prices.