Page 57 - UKRRptJul21

Ukraine is preparing to take legal action against Gazprom to unblock natural gas supplies from Central Asia, announced Yuriy Vitrenko, the new Naftogaz CEO (FT). “We are talking about tens of billions of cubic meters...Central Asian gas alone can fill the whole Ukrainian gas transit system,” Vitrenko said. For the last 15 years, Russia has blocked gas from Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan from flowing to the EU. As a result, these nations encouraged China to build a gas pipeline east. Since 2009, the Central Asia–China Gas Pipeline moves gas 7,000 km, from Turkmenistan to Shanghai. Ukraine is working with Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan to become the fulcrum of a Europe-Central Asia transit route, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said after meeting with Central Asian diplomats. Ukraine’s Black Sea ports would be the entry points to Europe and Turkmenbashi port would be the entry to Central Asia. At the same time, Yuriy Vitrenko, Naftogaz CEO, is lobbying the US and the EU to force Gazprom to allow Central Asian gas to flow through Ukraine to the EU.
9.1.3 Transport sector news
● Planes
For the first time in history, Kyiv Boryspil International Airport entered the top 15 busiest airports in Europe. Competing against 341 other airports in Europe, Ukraine’s main international gateway took 14th place in terms of passenger traffic during the January-April period this year, the airport announced on June 24. Outperforming airports in Europe’s major cities like Barcelona, Rome, Athens, Munich, Warsaw, Vienna, Berlin and Tel-Aviv, Boryspil airport is on the road to recovery after a devastating year for air travel due to the coronavirus pandemic. Boryspil airport served 1.75mn passengers during the first four months of 2021, which is 28.3% less than the same period in 2020, and a 54% drop from the traffic in 2019. Most of them traveled
57 UKRAINE Country Report July 2021 www.intellinews.com