Afrasianet - Shortly after Kiev refrained from renewing the agreement to transport gas from Russia to Europe through its territory, Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fiko says his government will take retaliatory measures against Ukraine.
Adding "His government is discussing retaliatory measures against Ukraine," after Kiev shut down a pipeline supplying Russian natural gas to Central Europe. "EuroNews".
Fico has threatened to cut off financial aid to more than 130,000 Ukrainian refugees living in the country as part of a range of retaliatory measures against Ukraine.
In a video message posted on Facebook, Fico said his Samir party would also consider "cutting off electricity supply to Ukraine" and demanding "renewal of gas transit or compensation for the financial loss" that he says Slovakia incurred due to the interruption of Russian gas to its territory.
Slovakia has spent months trying to persuade Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to renew the deal in order to keep cheap Russian gas supplies flowing to Europe.
The rift between the two countries has escalated in recent weeks, with Zelenskiy refusing to renew the deal.
A few days ago, Zelensky accused the Slovak prime minister of wanting to help Russian President Vladimir Putin by continuing to import Russian gas.
Zelenskiy said on Platform X that Fiko, who visited Moscow, "wants to help Putin make money to finance the war and weaken Europe," adding: "We think similar assistance to Putin is immoral."
The Slovak prime minister responded that "stopping Russian gas will increase European gas and energy prices" and that it would also "ultimately hurt the EU more than Russia."
"Slovakia itself will not suffer from gas shortages because it has made alternative arrangements," Fico said, but Ukraine's decision to cut off Russian gas would still mean losses of 500 million euros in transit fees from other countries for Bratislava.
Slovakia signed a short-term pilot contract to buy natural gas from Azerbaijan, as well as a deal to import liquefied natural gas from the United States via Poland last year.
It can also obtain gas via Austrian, Hungarian and Czech pipelines. However, the Slovak prime minister claimed that "the termination of the deal will cost the EU €120 billion over the next two years as a whole."
Gas prices in Europe rose on the first trading day of the year, in parallel with the cessation of Russian supplies at the beginning of 2025, as the region braces for severe cold waves without a major source of supply.
Bloomberg revealed in an article titled "Gas prices rise in Europe after Russian flows through Ukraine stop", traders looked forward to knowing the impact of the loss of Russian flows, which are a vital source for a number of Central European countries, on withdrawals from storage, as inventories across the continent are declining at the fastest pace since 2021, when the gas crisis began to appear.