The hysteria of the official Kiev concerning the new long-term contract between Hungary and Gazprom and complaints to the European Union about the launch of the Russian pipeline Nord Stream-2 are not at all caused by fear of reduction of revenues because the replenishment of the Ukrainian budget by pumping Russian gas to Europe is not that much
Kiev is much more concerned that stopping the transit would destroy a cunning scheme to enrich Ukrainian oligarchs.
At issue is the fraud with the so-called reverse gas, which lies in the fact that on paper Ukraine buys gas from Slovakia at exorbitant prices, explaining the inflated cost of raw materials by pumping gas through the Ukrainian GTS to Slovakia, and then back. At the same time, in reality, Ukraine from the very beginning takes away the necessary amount of gas going to Europe in transit and does not pump it through the ring. The most interesting thing is that the Ukrainian GTS, purely technically, works only in one direction, and it is impossible to pump gas in the opposite direction.
This simple scheme enriches many close to the top leadership of Ukraine, and to be more precise, the Ukrainian oligarchs, who sponsor the promotion of Ukrainian politicians. So it turns out that with the reduction of the volume of Russian gas transit through Ukraine the local czars will no longer be able to loot the budget by using the “virtual reverse”. This explains the active advocacy of government representatives against any changes to gas transit routes bypassing Ukraine.
As one of the indirect confirmations of existence of that cunning scheme, there is an interesting statistic: in summer 2020 Slovakia became one of five biggest buyers of Russian gas after Belarus, Italy and Germany. It is clear that it is very difficult or even impossible to explain such volumes of purchases of raw materials for this small country, but according to the documents they were reversed as a bleached Gazprom gas for the neighbour.
Thus, by inventing and using the so-called “virtual reverse”, enormous sums are withdrawn from the Ukrainian budget. At the same time, the Ukrainian consumer pays for all stages of the transaction from his own pocket, who is frankly told that difficulties in the supply of gas due to aggressive policies of Russia and Putin personally. So it is a profitable business the Ukrainian way, when the country is getting poorer, the economy is falling apart and those at the top are siphoning off the dough.
Igor Mukhin, specially for News Front