Yatseniuk: Russia might claim UAH 50 billion in fine for Ukraine's importing less natural gas

Presidential candidate Arsenii Yatseniuk, a deputy of the Verkhovna Rada from the faction of the Our Ukraine - People's Self-Defense Bloc, has said Russia can claim a fine worth UAH 50 billion for Ukraine's importing less natural gas.Ukrainian News learned this from a statement by the press service of Yatseniuk. "The fact of Ukraine's not importing a big volume of natural gas means one thing: Ukraine owes fines to Russia - the sum has grown to nearly UAH 50 billion there. Nobody forgives these sums to anybody for nothing," he said at a press conference in Kirovohrad.According to the presidential candidate, Ukraine will have to sacrifice something with the signing of a new agreement on gas supplies."A new agreement has not appeared. Even if this agreement appears, I understand very well that it will envisage reduction in economic sanctions on the one hand, but consolidation of the political pressure on the other hand," Yatseniuk said.The presidential candidate does not rule out a slight reduction in natural gas price for Ukraine, and the reduction can be used by Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko in her presidential election campaign."The elections are at hand and there is necessity of showing a sort of a victory. We have taken debt, we have paid to Russians for natural gas imports, and ahead of the elections [she] needs to show that the gas price for Ukraine has been cut, for example, by 5%. And [Tymoshenko will] call this a great victory. And who cares that the price of natural gas for Europe is lower by 20% than the price for Ukraine?" the presidential candidate said.Presidential candidate Yatseniuk professes the lower energy dependency of Ukraine through growth in the share of consumption of its own cheap electricity, reducing losses in the power grids, the reduction in the consumption of energy carriers, and developing alternative energy.As Ukrainian News earlier reported, Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko said on November 14 she would discuss at a meeting with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in Yalta (Crimea) on November 19 the question of optimization of the price of Russian natural gas for Ukraine.She also pledged of absence of fines from Russia for Ukraine's importing less natural gas than provided by the gas contracts between Russia's Gazprom gas monopoly and the Naftohaz Ukrainy national oil and gas company.