Slovakia on Thursday said the country is now receiving gas from Russia through Türkiye, a month after Ukraine halted flows through its territory.
Ukraine, battling a Russian invasion since February 2022, stopped supplies to the West at the beginning of the year, dealing a blow to the heavily dependent Slovakia.
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the move was designed to prevent Moscow from raising money to finance the war.
However, Slovakia, an EU member state, is more dependent on Russian gas than almost any other country in Europe and protested vehemently against the transit stop.
Gas is now being transported via Türkiye and Hungary instead of via Ukraine, the Slovakian state gas supplier SPP said Thursday.
SPP intends to honor its gas supply contract with the Russian company Gazprom, which runs until 2034, despite political concerns, SPP boss Vojtech Ferencz told journalists in Bratislava.
Slovakia invoked the EU Association Agreement with Ukraine, which, despite the war, provides for gas deliveries from Russia to EU countries to protect them from energy shortages.
Its Prime Minister Robert Fico – one of the Kremlin's few allies within the European Union – traveled to Moscow late last year to negotiate supplies with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Earlier this month, Fico met in Ankara with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who pledged that Ankara would engage in diplomatic efforts to address Slovakia's gas needs.
Slovakian Economy Minister Denisa Sakova traveled to the Gazprom headquarters in St. Petersburg twice at the end of last year.
"Gazprom export company has partly renewed gas supplies for SPP," SPP spokesperson Ondrej Sebesta told Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Thursday.
"They are conducted by the southern route through TurkStream and via Hungary to Slovakia," he added, refusing to go into detail.
Slovak daily Dennik N quoted SPP chief executive Vojtech Ferencz as saying the supplies via TurkStream had started on Feb. 1 and that the volume would double in April.
TurkStream runs for 930 kilometers (580 miles) under the Black Sea from the Russian resort city of Anapa to Kıyıköy in northwestern Türkiye.
It then connects to overground pipelines that run up through the Balkans to Europe, supplying EU member Hungary, Slovakia's southern neighbor.
The nationalist-leaning Fico, who leads a wobbly three-party coalition Cabinet, has also bemoaned the loss of fees for gas transit further west via his country.
His trip to Moscow sparked nationwide protests in Slovakia in January with tens of thousands taking to the streets and calling on him to step down.
On Thursday, a SPP manager admitted that the capacities of the TurkStream pipeline are not sufficient to compensate for the previous supplies of Russian gas via Ukraine.
Therefore, the search for additional alternatives will continue. However, the focus is on demand for the coming years.
According to the SPP, the storage facilities are sufficiently filled for 2025.
