RUSSIAN GAS TO EU STOPS

IMPACT OF WAR | Ukraine halts transit as pre-war deal expires; Zelenskyy says will not allow Moscow to earn 'additional billions...on our blood'

- Agencies

Ukraine on Wednesday halted Russian gas supplies to European customers that pass through the country, almost three years into Moscow's all-out invasion of its neighbour, after a prewar transit deal expired on December 31.

Russian company Gazprom confirmed that gas exports via Ukraine to Europe stopped from 08:00 local time on Wednesday.

At a summit in Brussels last month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy vowed that Kyiv would not allow Moscow to use the transits to earn "additional billions...on our blood, on the lives of our citizens". But he briefly held open the possibility of the gas flows continuing if payments to Russia were withheld until the war ends.

Ukraine's energy minister, Herman Halushchenko, confirmed on Wednesday morning that Kyiv had stopped the transit "in the interest of national security."