OREANDA-NEWS. Naftogaz’s executive director, Yuri Vitrenko, said the company had already received a warning from Gazprom that without a new transit contract, Russian gas would cease to flow into the Ukrainian gas transmission system (GTS) from January 1.

"The letter Gazprom sent to Naftogaz says in black and white that on January 1 at 10:00 Moscow time there will be no reason for Gazprom to supply gas to Ukraine", Vitrenko said in Deutsche Welle interview. According to him, this phrase in "Gazprom" actually recognized that they would "block the pipe" by stopping the transit of gas through the Ukrainian gas transportation system.

At the same time, Vitrenko said that Ukraine without a transit agreement will also have no reason to supply Russian gas, which will be in the Ukrainian gas transportation system, to Europe. Therefore, such gas will be pumped into underground storage facilities until its rightful owner appears. Vitrenko admitted that there are physical restrictions on the injection of gas into underground storage facilities, whose capacity is from 25 to 30 billion cubic meters. Now they already have up to 21 billion cubic meters of gas.