You're reading: Tymoshenko: Ukraine will lose gas transport system if signs gas joint venture agreement

The creation of joint Ukrainian-Russian enterprises together with Naftogaz Ukrainy threatens Ukraine with the loss of its gas transport system and possibilities for oil and gas production on its own territory, former Ukrainian Premier and Batkivschyna Party leader Yulia Tymoshenko has said.

"If Yanukovych signs [an agreement on] joint venture with the Russian Federation, moreover, under the conditions that are being offered to Ukraine – [that] there will be some small shares and Ukraine will not influence anything – then you should know we will lose not just the gas transport system… Ukraine will also deprive itself, by the hands of Yanukovych, of its whole system of oil and gas production," she told reporters after her visit to the Prosecutor General’s Office in Kyiv on Wednesday.

At the same time, Tymoshenko said the Ukrainian gas transport system brings $3 billion to the Ukrainian budget every year.

"If citizens of Ukraine continue to stay silent, then after Ukrtelecom, after the Black Sea shelf, which is already a done deal today, after the energy companies, after the plants, after everything is illegally taken by Yanukovych, then [we will lose] our gas transport system, [and] our Naftogaz Ukrainy," she said.