Kyiv has finally turned off Russia’s gas supply to Europe, ending a source of income that helped pay for Moscow’s war against Ukraine. The decades-old deal, which allowed the transit of natural gas produced by Russian energy giant Gazprom through Ukraine, ended at midnight on December 31, shutting down Russia’s last major gas corridor to Europe.
Europe’s dependence on Russian energy had already drastically reduced since the invasion in February 2022, so the gesture is mostly symbolic. But it doesn’t make the decision less important or mean there are no consequences for the remaining Gazprom customers in Europe.
Russia will continue to supply some gas via the Turkstream pipeline across the Black Sea – mostly to Serbia and Hungary. But the loss of transit connections through Ukraine has dealt another major blow to Gazprom on top of the closure of the Yamal-Europe pipeline via Belarus and the cancelling of Nordstream 2 in 2022.
