A Russian memorandum of understanding to Ukraine aims to gradually restore diplomatic and economic relations, including the transit of Russian gas, Russian state news agency TASS said.
The delegations from Russia and Ukraine held a second round of live talks in Istanbul on June 2. Here, Russian officials presented a two-part memorandum of understanding on Russia's conditions for a permanent ceasefire and a peace deal. Ukraine said it needs time to review the documents released by Russia.
Russian gas flows through Ukraine have stopped since January 1, 2025 after Kiev refused to extend the five-year gas transit agreement.
When closing the gas pipeline through Ukraine, Kiev is expected to lose up to $1 billion a year in transit fees from Russia. Meanwhile, Gazprom is expected to lose nearly $5 billion in gas sales.
The gas transit through Ukraine is one of the last two pipeline routes carrying Russian gas to Europe as other routes have been closed or damaged.
The Nord Stream pipeline across the Baltic Sea to Germany was destroyed in 2022, and the Yamal - Europe pipeline through Belarus has also been closed.
Russia currently only supplies pipeline gas to European countries such as Serbia and Hungary via TurkStream, a pipeline that crosses the Black Sea to Turkey, bypassing Ukraine.
In its developments related to Russian gas, Reuters reported on June 2 that gas supplied by Gazprom to Europe via the TurkStream pipeline in May increased by 10.3% compared to a month earlier.
Calculations are based on data from European gas transport giant Entsog. Accordingly, Russian gas exports via the TurkStream pipeline increased from 41.7 million m3 per day in April to 46.0 million m3 per day in May. This figure has decreased compared to 47.2 million m3 recorded in May 2024.
Total Russian gas supplies to Europe via TurkStream reached about 7.2 billion cubic meters in the first 5 months of 2025, up from 6.6 billion cubic meters in the same period last year.
Gazprom data and Reuters calculations show that Russia supplied about 63.8 billion cubic meters of gas to Europe via various gas pipelines in 2022. This figure has decreased sharply by 55.6% to 28.3 billion m3 in 2023, but has increased to about 32 billion m3 in 2024.
During the peak period of 2018-2019, the annual volume of Russian gas exports to Europe reached 175 billion cubic meters to 180 billion cubic meters.
