Ukraine's Naftogaz Resumes Gas Deliveries to Donbas

Some three hours after Naftogaz claimed is was "impossible" to restore gas deliveries to Donbas as a pipeline had been damaged during hostilities, Ukraine's state-run oil and gas company has resumed gas supplies to the southeastern regions.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Ukraine’s state-run oil and gas company Naftogaz resumed gas deliveries to southeastern Ukraine Thursday, the company’s chief said hours after the company claimed that deliveries were “impossible” because of damaged pipelines.

“In the past five or six hours our servicing teams were unable to get to the pipelines that deliver [gas] to the anti-terrorist operation zone,” Andriy Kobolev said. “They got this opportunity recently and so the supplies have resumed.”

Some three hours earlier, Naftogaz said that “the resumption of gas deliveries is impossible” because “the gas delivery infrastructure in the zone of hostilities was seriously damaged by shells and blasts.”

“In the past five or six hours our servicing teams were unable to get to the pipelines that deliver [gas] to the anti-terrorist operation zone,” Andriy Kobolev. “They got this opportunity recently and so the supplies have resumed.”

The self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk had to run on stocked gas since Kiev halted the supplies on Wednesday night.

The republics turned to Russia for help, saying they had enough gas only to last until Thursday night amid subzero temperatures. Gazprom started pumping gas to Ukraine at 6:00 p. m. Moscow time [3:00 p.m. GMT] Thursday.

Kobolev said that Naftogaz “is not going to pay the bill” for the gas that Russia had supplied to prevent a humanitarian disaster, because “this bill will be in breach of the contract.”