Ukraine acknowledges purchase of Russian gas via TurkStream

Ukraine "definitely" buys Russian gas that is supplied to Europe via the TurkStream gas pipeline, said the first deputy head of the Ukrainian Parliament’s energy committee, Oleksiy Kucherenko.

"We do not know what gas we are de facto buying. Unfortunately, I have to disappoint you, we are definitely buying Russian gas that is supplied via the TurkStream and goes, for example, to Serbia, to Hungary. We cannot determine the origin of the molecules," he emphasized, Caliber.Az reports, citing Russian media.

Currently, Ukraine mainly buys gas from the EU countries. Recently, Kyiv officially received the first batch of liquefied natural gas from the United States, but this volume was not enough to meet all needs. Slovak Foreign Minister Juraj Blanar admitted that Russian gas is still supplied to Ukraine, despite the fact that Kyiv formally buys it from European traders. Thus, despite statements about a complete rejection of Russian fuel, Ukraine continues to depend on it, purchasing it through intermediaries at inflated prices.

The TurkStream gas pipeline runs along the bottom of the Black Sea and has two branches: one is designed to supply gas to Türkiye, the second - to the countries of Southern and South-Eastern Europe. The design capacity of the pipeline is 31.5 billion cubic meters per year. It was commissioned in January 2020.

By Khagan Isayev