Minister of Energy of Ukraine German Galushchenko met with Secretary General of the Austrian Federal Economic Chamber Karlheinz Kopf. The meeting took place in Vienna, where the delegation of the Ministry of Energy is attending a meeting of the IAEA Board of Governors.

The Minister of Energy informed the Austrian side of Ukraine’s position on the transit of russian gas through Ukraine to European countries after the expiry of the current contract.

“Ukraine will not hold any negotiations with the russians. Over the past two years, EU countries have managed to significantly diversify their supplies under the EC’s RepowerEU initiative. We share the EU’s position that the European Union is not interested in Ukraine’s continuing to transit russian gas,” he said.

German Galushchenko also noted that Ukraine had conducted a stress test of its gas transmission system and underground gas storage facilities, which proved that they could operate stably and reliably even with zero gas transit.

The Minister stressed that this winter, European traders stored about 3 billion cubic metres of gas in Ukrainian underground gas storage facilities, and that Ukraine was ready to offer up to 15 billion cubic metres of its storage facilities to international partners. Ukraine’s gas capacities can be used, in particular, within the Vertical Corridor or other routes alternative to those of russia.

Karlheinz Kopf, in turn, noted that discussions on russian gas supplies were ongoing in Austria. At the same time, he thanked the Minister for the first-hand information on the Ukrainian position on this issue. The Secretary General also said that the Austrian side was considering sending a trade mission to Ukraine in the coming months.

The parties also discussed deepening cooperation in renewable energy and the development of distributed generation. German Galushchenko stressed that russian attacks on the Ukrainian energy sector had caused significant damage to the infrastructure, but Ukraine was working to decentralise power generation, which would strengthen the resilience of the energy system. Therefore, cooperation with Austrian partners is of interest to the Ukrainian side.