Disaster for Putin as key Ukraine move cuts off Russia’s ‘leverage over Europe’

Russia’s “leverage of Europe” has ended, according to the Ukrainian foreign minister, after the deal to transport gas via the war-torn country to the rest of the continent expired on New Year’s Day.

The deal, which was signed in 2019, has survived three years of war but its expiration means European states reliant on Russian gas won’t be able to access it via Ukraine.

Transnistria, a breakaway region of Moldova which Russia supports, has already been struck by power cuts following the expiration of the deal.

“Ukraine has cut off more than just Russian gas transit. We have cut off some of Putin’s last remaining leverage over Europe, and his use of energy as a weapon,” Ukraine‘s foreign minister Andrii Sybiha posted on X.

German Galushchenko, the country’s energy minister, dubbed the move “historic”, while President Zelensky said on social media that it was “one of Moscow’s biggest defeats”.

The Ukrainian leader wrote: “When Putin was given power in Russia more than 25 years ago, the annual gas pumping through Ukraine to Europe was 130+ billion cubic metres. Today, the transit of Russian gas is 0.”

However, Slovakia’s prime minister Robert Fico, who recently visited Moscow and whose country’s is heavily reliant on Russian gas, was scathing.

Writing on Facebook, he fumed: “Halting gas transit via Ukraine will have a drastic impact on us all in the EU but not on the Russian Federation.”

The ending of Russian gas imports travelling through Ukraine may further undermine Putin’s creaking war economy.

A report published in December Center for European Policy Analysis claimed: “Russia has abused Ukraine and Europe’s dependence on gas supplies and transit revenues to extort political concessions, spread corruption and exert malign influence.”