Ukraine closes its airspace to Russia as gas supply dispute erupts

Prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk claims Ukraine has stopped ordering Russian gas after banning its airlines as tensions rise

A plane takes off from Vnukovo airport in Moscow. Russian airlines will no longer be allowed to fly over Ukraine. Photograph: Maxim Shemetov/Reuters

Shaun Walker in Moscow-Wednesday 25 November 2015

Relations between Russia and Ukraine have further deteriorated as the countries clashed over gas and Kiev banned all Russian airlines from entering Ukrainian airspace.

The gas dispute will raise concerns that European supplies could suffer, and comes after the annexed Crimean peninsula was left without electricity at the weekend after saboteurs blew up power cables in mainland Ukraine.

Russia’s Gazprom said it would not ship any gas to Ukraine until it received prepayment. Later on Wednesday, Ukraine’s prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, claimed that he had ordered the state gas company to stop purchasing Russian gas. “It is not that they are not delivering us gas, it is that we are not buying any,” he said. 

Yatsenyuk said Kiev had been offered a better price by other European countries, who import gas from Russia but could then send it back to Ukraine. Earlier this week, Ukraine’s energy minister said the country had enough gas in reserve to last through winter.

Gazprom’s CEO, Alexey Miller, warned that Ukraine’s move could have grave consequences for the rest of Europe, saying that it “threatens safe gas transit toEurope … this coming winter”.

European Union countries get about a third of their gas from Russia, half of which comes via Ukraine. There is a long history of gas disputes between Russia and Ukraine, with one 2009 altercation causing serious disruption to supplies to Europe in mid-winter.

Yatsenyuk also banned Russian airlines from using Ukrainian airspace, saying the move was “an issue of the national security as well as a response to Russia’s aggressive actions”. Ukraine had already banned Russian airlines from flying to Ukrainian airports, a move that Russia quickly reciprocated, meaning there are no direct flights between the two countries. However, initially, Ukraine still allowed Russian planes to fly over its territory.

Crimea’s two million residents have been mostly without electricity since the weekend, when four saboteurs blew up four power cables. Before the attacks the peninsula received the majority of its electricity from the Ukrainian mainland. Government officials have focused on meeting essential needs, such as keeping hospitals running.

The local Crimean Tatar population of the peninsula was mainly opposed to Russian annexation, and Tatar activists have attempted to block Ukrainian repair teams at the site of the destroyed cables. Although a majority of Tatars still live inside Crimea, many Tatar activists have called for an economic blockade of the peninsula until a number of political prisoners are freed.

Russia has banned entrance to Crimea to a number of Crimean Tatar leaders and arrested others. The Tatar television channel ATR was raided by special forces and forced to close. It now broadcasts online from Kiev.

Russia has threatened to suspend coal deliveries to Ukraine in retaliation. The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, said it was obvious that without “tacit approval” from Ukraine’s political leaders, the blackout would not have happened. Crimean authorities have called the destruction of the cables a terrorist act.

Since the annexation of Crimea last March, the war in eastern Ukraine has led to more than 8,000 deaths as the Ukrainian government fights rebels, who receive military and financial support from Russia. Moscow denies having anything to do with the conflict, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

A shaky ceasefire has largely held in recent months, but there has been an uptick in violence in the past few days.