The Ukraine replaces gas with Russian coal and electricity

In the coming days, the Ukraine will resume purchases of Russian gas, but by results of the year its dependence on Gazprom will be minimal in history - a little more than a third of all needs. The country has begun rolling blackouts, the threat of collapse pushes Kiev to the other extreme: it increases the purchases of Russian coal, nuclear fuel and is going to begin a large-scale import of electricity from Russia for the first time in its history, the RBC daily reports.

 
Cases of need

According to the Russian Statistics Service, in the first ten months Russia reduced the supplies of virtually all types of energy sources to the Ukraine: the most massive was the reduction of gas supplies - more than by a third, the supply of oil reduced less than others - by 0.9%. In value terms, the exports fell by 15% to $9.86 billion (this figure includes the gas supply, not fully paid-by the Ukraine).

At the same time, the Ukraine doesn’t buy Russian gas from mid-June: the parties have argued about the debts for a long time and couldn’t agree on the price of the new supplies. The interim agreement, the so-called winter package, was signed in late October: Ukraine promised to pay $3.1 billion of the debt before the end of 2014 and agreed to purchase Russian gas at the price $378 per 1 thousand cubic meters until April 1, 2015.