KIEV (Sputnik) – Kiev authorities want to find a compromise on the issue of deliveries of Russian gas to southeastern Ukraine (Donbas), head of the Ukrainian state-run oil and gas company Naftogaz Andriy Kobolev has stressed.
"Nobody can control how this gas is used and it is absolutely incorrect to tell Ukraine that it should pay for gas deliveries that are illegal, that cannot be controlled either from the perspective of deliveries from Russia, or from the viewpoint of consumption," Kobolev told "5 TV", a Ukrainian television channel, on Tuesday.
"I think that this position will be heard in the EU and we will try to find a reasonable compromise," he added.
Kobalev stressed that Naftogaz cannot monitor gas supplies in Donbas as it has no representatives in the region.
Kiev cut gas deliveries to the self-proclaimed people's republics of Donetsk and Luhansk (DPR and LPR) in Ukraine's southeast last Thursday, although hours later Kobalev said the company had resumed gas deliveries to the regions.
Russia's gas giant Gazprom said it had begun gas deliveries to both of the Donbas republics, though the LPR said Friday morning it had not received any gas from Ukraine or Russia.
At the end of January, the DPR said that Kiev's suspension of gas supplies to one of the republic's districts had left about 30,000 people without heating in their homes.
Despite the ongoing conflict between Kiev and Donbas pro-independence fighters, the region is still heavily dependent on Ukrainian electricity and gas supplies. Last year, gas shortages were one of the reasons behind a severe humanitarian crisis in the region, which prompted Russia to send aid convoys with power generators to Donbas.
The issue of gas supplies is among the most acute in Russian-Ukrainian relations. In the summer of 2014, Russia's Gazprom cut off gas deliveries to Ukraine due to Kiev's massive debt that at the time surpassed $5 billion. Gas deliveries resumed in December, after months of negotiations mediated by the European Union.
