Despite the war in Ukraine, the Russian state-owned company Gazprom continues to pump large volumes of gas through the neighboring country to the West. Today, 108 million cubic meters should be delivered through the neighboring country’s pipeline system, as the group announced in Moscow. According to Russian information, this corresponds to the quantity ordered. The deliveries were confirmed by the operator of the Ukrainian gas transit network, as reported by the Interfax agency.
The contractually possible maximum utilization is 109 million cubic meters of gas per day. Ukraine receives important transit fees from the transit of Russian gas for its own state budget. According to Interfax, however, no gas is currently flowing through the Russian-European pipeline “Yamal-Europe” via Belarus and Poland to Germany. Rather, gas is diverted from Germany to Poland in the so-called reverse process from European storage facilities.
Threat of delivery stop
This means that deliveries through the other lines will continue even following the transfer of payments to rubles. President Vladimir Putin had instructed that gas should only be sold to Western countries for rubles, which they strictly rejected. As a result, Putin issued a decree obliging Western customers to open a ruble account with Gazprombank and process payments through it.
In this way, Russia wants to support its currency, but also ensure that the money deposited actually arrives. Previously, payments might also be made via other accounts. Putin had threatened to stop deliveries if payments were not made.
