Russian gas transit route to Europe via Ukraine is functioning, minister says

MYKOLAIV, Ukraine (Reuters) - The transit route for Russian gas deliveries to Europe via Ukraine is still functioning, Ukrainian energy minister German Galushchenko said on Thursday after reports of hostilities at the Sudzha gas transit station.

He said Ukraine had not been contacted by Russia about the situation with gas transit.

Russia said on Wednesday it was fighting intense battles against Ukrainian forces that had penetrated its border near the major natural gas transmission hub at Sudzha, in one of the largest incursions into Russian territory since the war began.

The Sudzha gas transfer and measuring stations in the Kursk region of Russia is the only entry point for Russian natural gas into the Ukrainian gas transmission system for onward transport to Europe.

Ukraine's gas transmission operator told Reuters earlier on Thursday that Russian natural gas continued to transit to Europe via Ukraine normally.

Later, the operator said Russia's Gazprom planned to ship about 41.7 million cubic meters of gas via Ukraine on Friday, against 37.25 mcm planned on Thursday.

In May 2022, at the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Ukrainian transit operator stopped transporting gas on an alternative branch line through the transit point of Sokhranivka close to the Luhansk region in the east.

Ukraine said Russian forces had started taking gas transiting through Ukraine and sending it to two Russia-backed separatist regions in the country's east.

After the closure of Sokhranivka, transit volumes fell by a quarter as Gazprom said it was unable to divert volumes to Sudzha.

The agreement on Russian gas transit to Europe through Ukraine expires in 2024, and Kyiv has said it has no intention of extending it or concluding a new deal.

(Reporting by Viktoria Lakezina, writing by Pavel Polityuk; Editing by David Goodman and Jan Harvey)