Ukraine should ‘confiscate’ Russian gas – politician

Ukraine should “confiscate” Russian gas from transit pipelines, Dmitry Razumkov, the former speaker of the Verkhovna Rada, the country’s parliament, has argued.

Russia transports some of its gas to Western Europe using a route through Ukraine created during the Soviet-era.

Razumkov, who was Rada speaker between 2019 and 2021, said the state of the Ukrainian economy is “close to a catastrophe.” 

“As a transit country, we must fulfill obligations to our international partners. But surplus Russian gas should be confiscated in accordance with the law and pumped into our storages,” Razumkov wrote in a column for the Ukrainska Pravda newspaper on Wednesday.

“Because we have a paradoxical situation: every single day we are pumping millions of cubic meters of Russian gas and don’t fill our own storages to a required capacity.” 

Razumkov added that the government and state oil and gas company Naftogaz must adopt a strategic plan to “ensure the energy security of Ukraine.”

“A difficult winter awaits us,” Razumkov warned, adding that Ukrainians may have to “get used to having a 16C temperature at home.”

“We have only 11 billion cubic meters of gas today. It’s unclear how much Ukraine will manage to pump [to storages] by fall.”