Gazprom will continue to transit gas to Europe via Ukraine and after the expiration of the transit agreement expires in 2020, but volumes will be significantly reduced. This was stated by the chairman of the board of PJSC Gazprom Alexei Miller in an interview with Reuters.

"As for transit through Ukraine after January 2020, we have already stated that we are ready to negotiate. Another thing is that it can only be about smaller volumes. Somewhere about 15 billion cubic meters of gas per year, and these volumes are intended for countries that border Ukraine, "Miller said..

Transit of Russian gas through Ukraine in the early 2000s was more than 100 billion cubic meters per year. In 2016, transit amounted to 82.2 billion cubic meters - 22.5% more than in 2015.

Miller said that transit through Ukraine will decrease for a number of reasons, including the increase in production of Gazprom in Yamal.

"If you look at a picture from space, then (German) Greifswald is just a straight line across the Baltic from new deposits.

This route is two thousand kilometers shorter than through Ukraine, "Miller said.. He also added that, in his opinion, Ukraine has not invested decades in upgrading the pipelines, so the new route will be "environmentally friendly".

Gazprom supplies gas to Europe via three main routes - the Ukrainian gas transmission system, the pipeline from Yamal to Europe via Belarus and Poland, as well as to Germany via the Nord Stream pipeline, laid along the bottom of the Baltic Sea.