KYIV (Reuters) – Kyiv’s sanctions prohibiting the transit of oil from Russian producer Lukoil do not pose a threat to Slovakia’s energy security, Ukraine’s prime minister said on Wednesday.
Lifting the sanctions is not a matter for discussion and Kyiv has the European Union’s “full understanding” on the matter, Denys Shmyhal said in a statement on Telegram messenger.
Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said on Monday his country would halt diesel supplies to Ukraine unless Kyiv restores oil flows from Russia’s Lukoil through its territory. Slovakia and Hungary together supply about 10% of Ukraine’s diesel.
“Slovakia is our reliable partner from whom we do not expect blackmail or threats,” Shmyhal said.
“The sanctions … do not pose a threat to the energy security of Slovakia and Europe as a whole, which is why their lifting is not a subject of discussion,” he added.
Ukraine in late June imposed sanctions against Lukoil, one of Russia’s largest oil companies, banning it from any activity on Ukrainian territory and stopping its oil from passing to Slovak and Hungarian refineries.
Sanctions against Lukoil began to take effect at the end of June, but Hungary and Slovakia did not report supply problems until mid-July.
The Druzhba, or “friendship”, oil pipeline linking Russia to eastern Europe has remained functioning through more than two years of war, even as the EU weaned itself off most other sources of Russian energy supplies.
The southern branch of the pipeline runs via Ukraine to the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary, and has been the primary source of supply for their refineries for years. Rosneft, Lukoil and Tatneft have been the main Russian exporters via the route.
Ukrainian oil transport company Ukrtransnafta earlier this month said that after the sanctions against Lukoil came into force, it asked oil pumping agent MOL and was assured that there was no oil belonging to Lukoil in the volumes transported via Ukrainian territory.
Ukrtransnafta has information about the oil producer before it starts taking oil into its system, but does not know the actual owner of the oil, which may change along the length of the route.
The absence of Lukoil’s oil in transit was also confirmed by Naftogaz head Oleksiy Chernyshov, who also said that transit volumes were stable despite the absence of Lukoil.
(Reporting by Yuliia Dysa and Pavel Polityuk; Editing by Conor Humphries)
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