Here's the actual statement from Gazprom's CEO, Alexi Miller...
"The debt that Ukraine's Naftogaz Ukrainy owes for Russian natural gas has risen to $1.89 billion, Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller told journalists.
"In fact, this means that Ukraine has stopped paying for gas," Miller said.
"This is completely at odds with the provisions of the contract and international trade practice. For our part, we have always met and will meet our contractual obligations. But we can't supply gas free of charge. Either Ukraine repays its debt and pays for current deliveries or the risk of returning to the situation at the beginning of 2009 will appear. We will notify the Russian government concerning the situation that is taking shape," Miller said.
Gazprom announced that today, March 7, was the payment deadline for February's deliveries of gas to Ukraine. Gazprom has not received payment on the debt. Including the price discount in effect in the first quarter, the overdue debt for gas has increased significantly and now totals $1.890 billion.
The US approved a Ukrainian bailout package yesterday of $1 billion dollars, however it was not meant to go straight to Russia via Gazprom and it's only about half of what the Ukraine owes as their last installment payment was a mere $100 million of the $1.89 billion dollar debt.
The situation of 2009 was New Year's day as Russia was exerting influence over Ukrainian politics again, Gazprom had said it wanted $400 per 1000 cubic of natural gas up from $250, Kiev refused to pay and Russia promptly cut all gas supplies to the Ukraine and only pumped enough for their customers in Europe, of course then as now, the EU and US were in the middle of the Ukrainian / Russian affair and shortly thereafter Russia accused Ukraine of siphoning off gas from the pipelines that traverse the Ukraine en route to Europe and then shut off all gas supplies including to all of Europe. This effected the poorer souther/eastern countries as some declared state of emergencies as there was sub-zero weather at the time, others had to shut down all major manufacturing. Western Europe, particularly the Northwest had been stockpiling gas supplies for 3 years so they were less effected, but the wholesale price of natural gas soared. THIS IS ESSENTIALLY WHAT RUSSIA VIA GAZPROM IS THREATENING WITH A DEBT LOAD OF $1.89 BILLION WHICH THEY NOW SAY IS DUE TODAY, ADVVANCING THE PAYMENT SCHEDULE FROM THE 10TH, OBVIOUSLY THE UKRAINE DOESN'T HAVE THE MONEY.
Isn't this this convenient the day after Obama made threats to Putin which Russia said was, "Taking an extremely un-constructive position" and with the EU just canceling talks on entry Visas that make it easier for Russians to travel to the EU.
Putin said, "Russia will not accept the language of sanctions and threats and will retaliate, shortly thereafter, that's when Gazprom brought out the ghost of 2009 this morning.
Bonds in the Ukraine have seen their yields hit +47% this morning, that's up from about 7-8% this January, as mentioned, German stocks fell right at the time of the threat.
It seems VERY clear the Tuesday Putin overtures of de-escalation were far, far from the end of this crisis, the silly market ought to know better when it comes to Putin and their former Soviet satellite states that the US and Nato have been picking off one by one since 1998.
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