BAKU: Hungary is supplying Russian natural gas to Ukraine, a Hungarian official told Reuters on Wednesday in comments which indicate that Moscow is struggling to control exports of its fuel to its enemy.
Ukraine has faced a serious gas shortage since Russian missile strikes this year significantly reduced domestic gas production.
The country imports gas via Slovakia and Hungary after ending direct gas imports from Russia in 2015 following Moscow’s annexation of Crimea and a pro-Russia rebellion in the east of the country, which Russian troops now control.
Slovakia said earlier this year it was exporting Russian gas to its neighbour but Hungary had not said it was doing the same until now.
“We are importing from Serbia, from the TurkStream, and we are exporting that to Ukraine… We are supplying Ukraine with Russian gas.”
Mark Alfoldy-Boruss, Deputy State Secretary at Hungary’s Ministry for Energy told Reuters on the sidelines of a conference in Baku. Russian energy giant Gazprom did not reply to a request for comment.
Gazprom had included a clause prohibiting the re-export of its gas in contracts with European companies but dropped it as a result of a European Commission anti-monopoly investigation initiated in 2012.
The Kyiv government has said Ukraine needs to import at least 4 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas for the new 2025/26 heating season while analysts and former officials estimated the required imports at about 6.3 bcm.
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