Russia wants to keep gas transit via Ukraine to Europe: Vladimir Putin

President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that Russia aims to keep pumping gas via Ukraine to the European Union but added that Moscow could not force Kyiv to keep the transit agreement which expires at the end of this year.

"As for Ukraine, we are not abandoning this transit, oddly enough. Why? Because we, and Gazprom, intend to fulfil all our obligations to our customers with whom we have long-term contracts," Putin said.

"There is a transit contract that ends on December 31 of this year. But if Ukraine refuses this transit, well, we can't force it," Putin said.

Putin said that Gazprom''s main consumers in Europe did not seem to want the transit agreement to end even though they provided military assistance to Ukraine.

The Soviet-era Urengoy-Pomary-Uzhgorod pipeline brings gas from western Siberia via Sudzha in Russia's Kursk region. It then flows through Ukraine in the direction of Slovakia.

In Slovakia, the gas pipeline is divided, one of the branches goes to the Czech Republic, the other to Austria. The main buyers of gas are Hungary, Slovakia and Austria.

If Ukraine refused transit of Russian gas, then Russia would use TurkStream gas pipeline under the Black Sea to supply Europe.

"Ukraine refuses our transit, which means that the volumes of gas that enter Europe will decrease," Putin said.

"They will follow other routes, in particular through the TurkStream, maybe partly through the Blue Stream to Turkey too.

But this is their choice, how it will affect them, I do not fully know."

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