You're reading: Yatsenyuk: Ukraine will supply gas, electricity to occupied Donbas at expense of social payments

Ukraine won't stop supplying gas and electricity to the occupied territories in Donetsk and Luhansk regions, but the expenses will be compensated from the social payments and pensions reserved for those territories, Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said. 

“The sum of unpaid bills for the electricity and gas supplied by Ukraine to Donetsk and Luhansk will be taken from the funds we’ve reserved for social payments and pensions to the residents of those territories,” he said on Friday.

According to him, those territories consume electricity worth about UAH 700 million per month, while unpaid gas bills by the end of the year will total about UAH 2 billion.

“We’ve got enough funds for more than six months so that the money which hasn’t been paid as compensations, social welfare, subsidies and pensions [in Ukraine’s east] could be transferred as payment for the gas and electricity,” he said.