The European Union, and not Russia, will suffer after Ukraine turned off the tap on Russian gas supplies to the bloc, Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico said Wednesday.
Kyiv refused to prolong a transit deal with Russian state energy giant Gazprom that allows Moscow to funnel natural gas into Central Europe via Ukraine’s pipelines, ignoring pleas from countries like Slovakia and Hungary that rely on cheap Russian energy.
The deal expired Jan. 1, marking the end of an arrangement that has been in place for decades.
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“Halting gas transit via Ukraine will have a drastic impact on us all in the EU — but not on the Russian Federation,” Fico, the Slovak prime minister, said in a New Year’s address posted on social media.
