Ukraine blames Russia for gas transit interruption

KIEV, May 11 (Xinhua) -- The gas transmission system operator of Ukraine (GSTOU) has accused Russia of interrupting Russian gas transit through Ukraine to the consumers in Ukraine and Europe.

Sergiy Makogon, head of the GSTOU, said on Wednesday that Gazprom has stopped transportation of gas from Russia to the gas measuring station Sokhranivka, thus suspending supplies to Ukraine's eastern Donetsk and Lugansk regions.

On Tuesday, the GSTOU said that it was forced to suspend the Russian gas transit to Europe via the territories in eastern Ukraine controlled by Russian forces due to "force majeure".

The gas transit via the Sokhranivka and the border compressor station Novopskov were halted over unauthorized interference in technical processes and withdrawals of gas, the GSTOU said.

"The actions of the occupiers led to the interruption of gas transit," it said.

Novopskov is the gas compressor station in the conflict-affected Lugansk region, which pumps up to 32.6 million cubic meters of gas per day via Sokhranivka or a third of Russia's gas transit to Europe.

The GSTOU said it is ready to reroute the gas flows from Sokhranivka to the Sudzha physical interconnection point located in the territory controlled by Ukraine.

A similar transfer of capacity from Sokhranivka to Sudzha took place from Oct. 12 to 25, 2020 due to scheduled repairs, the GSTOU said.

According to it, Sudzha has a capacity of pumping 72 million cubic meters of gas per day.

On March 31, the GSTOU said that 44 gas-distributing stations in Ukraine suspended their operations due to the damage caused by shelling in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

On March 10, Makogon said that the daily transit of Russian gas via Ukraine almost doubled since the start of the conflict to a contracted maximum of 109 million cubic meters per day.

On April 12, local media reported that Russia's gas transit through Ukraine fell to about 68 percent of the contracted maximum.

In 2021, Ukraine transited some 41.6 billion cubic meters of Russian gas to consumers in Europe, down 25 percent from 2020.