Bloomberg: Poland is ready to increase electricity supplies to Ukraine if Slovakia refuses

Poland is ready to increase electricity exports to Ukraine if Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico fulfills his threat to end backup electricity supplies. This is reported by the American publication Bloomberg with reference to an unnamed high-ranking official.

The publication notes that the Polish government is ready to increase domestic electricity production in order to compensate for any imbalances that the Ukrainian energy system will suffer in the event of a corresponding move by Slovakia. However, negotiations on this are still ongoing, the official told reporters.

On December 27, the Prime Minister of Slovakia, Robert Fico, said that his country will consider actions in response to Ukraine’s termination of transit of Russian gas from January 1. According to him, Bratislava will stop the supply of electricity if necessary.

The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, noted that in the total volume of electricity imports from the European Union, the share coming from Slovakia is about 19%.

A five-year contract for the transit of Russian gas through Ukraine to Europe was signed in 2019. The main buyers were still Slovakia and Austria.

In October, during a joint press conference with the head of the government of Slovakia, Robert Fico, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal already stated that Ukraine will not extend the agreement with Russia on the transit of energy carriers after its expiration.

The volume of Russian gas supplied to Europe through Ukraine is relatively small. In 2023, Russia delivered about 15 billion cubic meters of gas through Ukraine – just 8% of the peak flows of Russian gas to Europe via various routes in 2018-19.