Russia has cut gas supplies to Belarus by nearly two thirds as a payment feud went into a third day and claimed its first European victim with Lithuania reporting a drop in gas flow.
Lithuania said it had suffered a 40% reduction in supplies pumped through Belarus, after maverick Belarussian leader Alexander Lukashenko warned of a ‘gas war’ with Moscow and shut down transit of Russian gas to Europe.
A reduction of natural gas supplies to Lithuania amid a row between Russia and Belarus constitutes an ‘attack’ on the whole European Union according to an EU commissioner.
‘This isn't only a problem for this one member state, it is a problem, it is an attack on the whole European Union,’ EU Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger told reporters in Brussels.
The EU commissioner urged Moscow and Minsk to honour their commitments to Europe, stressing that ‘their problems should not be our problems’.
In a dramatic television appearance for the third day in a row, the chief executive of Gazprom said the Russian gas giant was cutting Belarus' supplies by 60% from this morning but said European customers should not worry.
‘We have two pieces of news. One is good, the other is bad,’ a grim-faced Alexei Miller said in comments released by his company.
‘Transit of Russian gas through the territory of Belarus is being implemented in the full amount and consumers of Russian gas do not experience any problems with it.’
‘The bad news is the Belarussian side is undertaking no action to settle the debt for Russian gas supplies,’ he said, adding that the cuts would continue in proportion to Belarus's outstanding debt.
Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov declined to comment on Lithuania's report of the reduced energy flow.
