Ukraine and Russia have come close to reaching an agreement in the gas issue, stated Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Saturday during his working trip to Kharkiv.
We are now very close to regulating the issue of the gas conflict with the Russian Federation. I hope that significant progress will be demonstrated on October 17, next Friday, in Milan,” Poroshenko said.
According to him, the issue of gas security will be discussed together with the issues pertaining to the Peace Plan and the execution of the Minsk Agreements. “We think that Ukraine’s propositions are clear and grounded. We are convinced we are close to solving this issue,” noted the head of state.
On September 26 at the trilateral gas talks in Berlin, Russia, Ukraine and the EU discussed the ‘winter plan’ regarding the gas issue. It preemptively presumed that should Kyiv pay the 3,1 billion USD debt for Russian gas this year, ‘Gazprom’ will supply 5 billion cubic meters of gas to Ukraine with advance payments of 385 USD per thousand cubic meters.
Meanwhile Ukraine offers its own schedule of debt payments and does not agree with Russia’s proposed mechanism to give a discount of 100 USD per thousand cubic meters on account of taxes.
Ukraine currently only receives reversed gas from Europe. Import from Russia was suspended on June 16.
Earlier the Russian President’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov stated that a meeting between Vladimir Putin and Petro Poroshenko was being discussed, the meeting could take place in Milan at the EU and Asia summit both in the bilateral and multilateral formats.
