Gas distribution station in UkraineMOSCOW, February 2 Hungary, is of Russian origin, the Strana.ua edition drew attention to this. Earlier, the head of the company GTS Operator of Ukraine, Serhiy Makogon, said that Ukraine for the first time began to import gas directly from Hungary, while it used to receive fuel in reverse. «Ukraine will purchase all the same Russian gas, but through intermediaries represented by Slovakia and Hungary (and they will receive it through the Turkish or Nord Streams),” the Strana.ua post in its Telegram channel says. The publication also noted that the start of supplies coincided with a visit to Moscow by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.The head of the Hungarian Cabinet, following talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, said that the parties are close to an agreement on the supply of an additional 1 billion cubic meters of gas.Putin, for his part s, noted that increasing gas supplies by such a volume should not be a «special problem» for Russia. Ukraine has been named the date for the start of gas purchases from Russia Formally, Kyiv has not been buying gas from Russia since 2015, receiving it through the so-called virtual reverse. This scheme involves offsetting deliveries: Ukrainian consumers take away part of the transit gas that Gazprom sends to Europe. It does not physically cross the western border, but is registered as imported from the EU. Under the contract that Gazprom and Naftogaz signed at the end of 2019, the Russian company guarantees the pumping of 40 billion cubic meters of gas per year through Ukrainian territory. Nevertheless, deliveries are declining: as Serhiy Makogon, head of the GTS Operator of Ukraine, stated, transit almost halved in the first days of the year.
