Fico met Russian President Putin in Moscow on December 22 to discuss energy supplies and the war in Ukraine, after Kyiv decided not to allow Russian gas to flow through Ukrainian territory from January 1.
Ukraine, which has been resisting a full-scale Russian military invasion for nearly three years, refused to renew a transit deal with Russian energy giant Gazprom as it seeks to cut revenues going to Moscow to fund the war.
Fico has threatened to take retaliatory measures against Kyiv in response to the transit halt. Slovakia wanted to continue receiving Russian gas through Ukraine to keep costs down and keep earning revenue from onward gas shipments to neighboring European states.
“I spoke to Putin about a contract between us and Gazprom, which says that they have to somehow deliver the gas to us,” Fico told a parliamentary committee.
“We are able to push something through the southern flow [route through Turkey], but so far we have storage, Slovak consumption is secured.”
Fico said Putin guaranteed that Russia would meets its obligations, although capacity in the TurkStream pipeline and connected routes taking Russian gas via Turkey to Europe was limited.
“President Putin guaranteed that they will honor their commitments,” Fico said.
Supplies could be partly delivered through western Europe, Fico claimed, referring to Slovakia’s pipeline connections to gas networks in central and west Europe.
On Friday, Ukraine’s foreign ministry responded to Slovakia’s recent criticism over the end of Russian gas transit by saying the problem lies with Russia and the unwillingness of “certain politicians” to cut their dependence on Moscow.
The end of the Ukraine gas deal has not triggered fuel shortages in Europe and the European Union has repeatedly said there was no need to extend the contract, adding that countries receiving Russian gas had access to alternative supplies.
Fico has argued that Europe has suffered multi-billion-euro losses through price rises caused by the absence of around 13.5 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas that flowed through Ukraine last year, including around 3 bcm for Slovak consumption.
Fico said an agreement to continue shipments through Ukraine had been close at one stage. It had been proposed, Fico claimed, that Russian gas could change ownership before entering Ukraine under an agreement involving Azerbaijan or the Slovak gas importer SPP, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy rejected extending any gas flow deals through Ukraine at the EU’s December summit.
