Putin vows no new Russian gas deal for EU as Orbán, Fico plead for extension

A controversial deal that allows Central European nations to buy Russian gas via Ukraine will soon end, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared Thursday, even as Kremlin-friendly European Union leaders scrambled to ensure their continued access to cheap fuel.

Speaking at his annual marathon press conference, the Russian strongman said the transit agreement would be allowed to expire at the end of the year without a clear alternative in place.

“This contract will no longer exist, that much is clear,” Putin said. “But that’s fine — we will survive, Gazprom will survive.” Ukraine has refused to directly renegotiate the deal and has instead offered its own domestic gas production as an alternative for its neighbors.

At the same time, at a press conference in Brussels on Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said “we would not prolong the transit of Russian gas” past the terms of the contract. According to him, it is “shameful” for countries to worry about small increases in the cost of fuel when Ukrainians are losing their lives defending against Moscow’s invasion.

The long-term contract, signed in 2019, allowed the Russian state energy giant to pump natural gas through Ukraine’s vast network of pipelines to customers in the EU. However, in a bid to weaponize energy flows, Russia cut off supplies to countries like Germany and Poland in the wake of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Since then, however, a handful of EU member countries including Slovakia, Hungary and Austria have continued to buy Russian gas through this route, despite a bloc-wide commitment to end reliance on Moscow by 2027.

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has publicly called for an arrangement to prolong the practice. According to him, Kyiv’s decision not to extend the contract with Gazprom “does not mean that we cannot take gas from the east.” He pledged to raise the issue with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at a meeting of the European Council in Brussels Thursday.

Meanwhile, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán visits Bulgaria this week, where he hopes to strike a deal to ensure continued access to supplies. A POLITICO analysis found that the end of the gas transit would have a limited impact on the EU as a whole.