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Russian President Vladimir Putin hopes that Belarus will not shut off the transit of Russian gas to the EU.
“Theoretically, of course, [President of Belarus Alexander] Lukashenko, as the President of a transit country, can probably give an order to cut off our supplies to Europe. But this would be a violation of our transit contract, and I hope it will not come to that,” the Russian leader said in an interview with Pavel Zarubin, the host of the Moscow. Kremlin. Putin show.
Putin also drew attention to the fact that “they [the EU] always apply and threaten to apply new sanctions” against Lukashenko.
“But this (blocking gas transit – TASS) would cause great damage to the energy sector of Europe, the energy sector of Europe and would not contribute to the development of our relations with Belarus as a transit country,” Putin said.
He said that he was going to discuss with his Belarusian counterpart his words about the possibility of cutting off gas transit to the EU countries.
“To be honest, this is the first time I hear about this, because I have recently talked with Alexander Grigorievich twice, he never told me about it, did not even hint,” Putin admitted.
“But he can [make such statements], probably,” Putin assumed adding that “there is nothing good about it.”
“Of course, I will talk to him on this topic, if only he did not say it in the heat of the moment,” the Russian leader assured.
Putin recalled a similar situation.
“But we already have such a case – with Ukraine. In 2008, if I remember it right, we faced the crisis, when, due to endless disputes over the price of gas and the price of transit, we failed to agree with our Ukrainian friends. We could not agree on the main parameters of these contracts. Eventually, Ukraine blocked our gas supplies, that were intended for consumers in Europe. Relatively speaking, they shut the valve off, as experts say, they simply cut off Russian gas to Europe. This already occurred before,” he said.
