By Selen Tonkus and Emre Gurkan Abay
A proposed Russian gas pipeline - the South Stream project - to transport natural gas to Europe by going under the Black Sea and bypassing Ukraine is a tool Russia is using to put pressure on Ukraine, says the Ukrainian ambassador to Turkey.
Ukraine is currently a transit country for Russian gas. The new pipeline would weaken Ukraine's role as a major gas supplying route for Russian gas to Europe say energy analysts.
Russia wants to bypass Ukraine despite the fact that an additional pipeline to Europe is unnecessary, as Ukraine's pipelines have spare capacity of 60 billion cubic meters, the ambassador Sergey Korsunsky said Wednesday.
And having Crimea belong to Russia would further strengthen Russia's hand, Korsunsky said, because “then the pipeline could be on the land, and will be shorter, cheaper and more secure."
Russian troops are maintaining their presence in Ukraine's autonomous region of Crimea, where authorities plan to hold a referendum March 16 about whether to unite with Russia.
The ambassador emphasized that if Crimea votes to break away from Ukraine, the decision will not be recognized by Ukraine. He also praised the EU's decision Monday to suspend talks with Russia about the pipeline because of the intervention in Crimea.
"Russia is an important partner, but if they annex Crimea, Western companies will withdraw and Russia cannot survive. We saw that on March 2, in one day the Moscow stock exchange lost 60 billion U.S. dollars in value. So energy dependency is making Europeans hesitant in forcefully reacting to Russia's moves, but there is a limit,` says Korsunsky.
- "Ukraine will reconsider energy relations with Russia" -
Asked whether Russia would cut the gas supply to Ukraine, as it did 2006 and 2009, Korsunsky said, “I’m sure it will happen again.”
Russia accused Ukraine of illegally importing its gas in 2006 and 2009, and stopped gas flows to Ukraine as a consequence.
Gazprom recently announced that Ukraine’s gas debt amounted to nearly $2 billion and signaled that gas supplies to Ukraine might be cut.
“Ukraine will pay its debt and there is now an agreement with Europeans, under which they will help us resolve this issue,” Korsunsky stated.
He said Ukraine would also reconsider the framework for buying and transferring natural gas from Russia to Europe when the crisis ends by cutting gas supply.
“We do not have any intention to harm Europeans or Turkey,” he emphasized.
Explaining that the metering stations that control the gas flow in the pipelines are completely under Russia’s control, Korsunsky underlined that Ukraine could not physically stop the gas flow even if it wanted to.
Korsunsky said Russia is an important country with substantial economic, nuclear and military force and therefore it is not easy for Western powers to take action against it.
“The West is becoming more and more intensive in their efforts to stop the aggression,” he said.
"Nobody is going to recognize a referendum. If Crimea wants more autonomy, if they have some concerns, no problem, let us sit and talk. But there is no way this could be resolved with military intervention," Korsunsky stated.
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