Experts doubt that Moscow and Kyiv will manage to reach a compromise on gas talks before the parliamentary elections in Ukraine scheduled for October 28, 2012.
“There are currently no serious grounds to hope that any compromise will be reached at a meeting between the prime ministers of the two countries on June 27,” Director of the Institute of Energy Studies Dmytro Marunych said at a press conference in Kyiv on Monday.
He said that the parties had currently demonstrated the firmness of their positions, particularly on the volume of gas purchases by Ukraine, which plans to buy 27 billion cubic meters of natural gas from Russia instead of the contracted 52 billion cubic meters.
“Nobody wants to reach a compromise… I would not even pin high hopes on a meeting of the presidents of the two countries that might be held in July, as there are no grounds for a compromise. The sides are currently not planning to change their positions with respect to the current gas contracts,” Marunych said.
Director of the Institute for Political Analysis and International Studies Serhiy Tolstov, in turn, noted the importance of the political aspect in Ukrainian-Russian gas negotiations.
“Political experts say that [the results of the talks] will unlikely be achieved before this autumn. If anything happens, it will most likely happen after the parliamentary elections and in the light of their results,” he said.
