Ukraine: Russian officials 'frustrated' with Putin – as Moscow reacts to Trump's plans to meet Kremlin leader

Vladimir Putin has promised Slovakia that Russian company Gazprom will find other ways to deliver contracted gas to Slovakia after transit through Ukraine ends, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said today.

Fico met with Putin in Moscow in late December to discuss gas and the war in Ukraine after kyiv decided not to allow Russian gas to pass through Ukraine from January 1.

Fico threatened to take retaliatory measures against kyiv because Slovakia wanted to continue receiving Russian gas through Ukraine in order to keep costs low and continue generating revenue for transit countries through shipments gas to Europe.

“I spoke to Putin about a contract between us and Gazprom, which states that they must deliver the gas to us one way or another,” Fico told a parliamentary committee.

“We are able to transport something via the southern flow (route passing through Turkey), but for the moment we have storage, Slovak consumption is assured.”

Fico said Putin guaranteed that Russia would meet its obligations, even though the capacity of the TurkStream pipeline and the connecting route carrying Russian gas to Europe via Turkey was limited.

“President Putin guaranteed that they would honor their commitments,” Fico said.

Some could be delivered via Western Europe, Fico said, referring to Slovakia’s pipeline connections to the gas networks of its Central and Western European neighbors.

Fico claimed that Europe had suffered losses worth billions of euros due to rising gas prices caused by the absence of around 13.5 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas that passed through Ukraine last year, of which around 3 billion m3 were intended for Slovak consumption.