Slovak Prime Minister Roberto Fico said today that President Vladimir Putin has promised Slovakia that Russia’s Gazprom will find an alternative way to supply contract gas to Slovakia after the end of transit through Ukraine.
Fico met with President Putin in Moscow in late December to discuss gas and the war in Ukraine, following Kiev’s decision not to allow Russian gas into Ukraine from January 1.
Fico takes retaliatory action against Kiev as Slovakia wants to continue accepting Russian gas via Ukraine in order to keep costs down and continue to earn transit country revenue from future gas shipments to Europe. He is threatening to take action.
“I spoke with President Putin about the contract between me and Gazprom. The contract states that gas must be delivered to us in some way,” Fico told a parliamentary committee. .
“We can push something out through the southern flow (the route through Turkey), but for now we have storage and Slovakia’s consumption is secured.”
Fico said that although the Turkish Stream pipeline and connecting routes carrying Russian gas to Europe through Turkey had limited capacity, President Putin assured Russia that it would meet its obligations.
“President Putin has promised to keep his word,” Fico said.
Some could be supplied through Western Europe, Fico said, referring to pipeline connections to the gas networks of Slovakia and its neighbors in Central and Western Europe.
FICO claimed that Europe suffered billions of euros in losses due to higher gas prices due to the lack of around 13.5 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas that flowed through Ukraine last year (including around 3 bcm of Slovakian consumption).
