Due to the war, Ukraine stopped the transit of Russian gas in the Luhansk region in the east of the country on Wednesday morning.

This could save up to 32.6 million cubic meters of gas per day - that is almost a third of the maximum amount that can be transported via Ukraine to Europe every day, the Ukrainian gas network operator announced on Tuesday.

Bookings for Russian gas transit to Europe through Ukraine via the key Sokhranivka route have already dropped to zero.

This emerges from data from the Ukrainian gas pipeline operator.

Due to the Russian occupation, it had become impossible to control the Sochranivka point and the Novopskov compressor station, it said.

The operator referred to a case of "force majeure".

Therefore, from Wednesday, the gas flow will be stopped via the associated Sokhranivka route and instead routed via the Suja node.

According to the data, booking processing there on Wednesday was almost 72 million cubic meters.

Sokhranivka is part of the Soyuz pipeline, which runs from the Russian region of Orenburg to Uzhhorod in Ukraine. 

Gazprom: Continue to fulfill our commitments

The Ukrainians indicated that the Russians recently disrupted the operation of the plants.

Russia's energy giant Gazprom, which recently pumped almost 100 million cubic meters of gas through Ukraine to Europe every day, said it had received "no confirmation of force majeure".

The Ukrainians have been working "undisturbed" in Sochranivka in recent weeks.

It is technically not possible to route the deliveries that are no longer available directly to the Sudscha point, which is on Russian territory near the border with Ukraine, said spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov, according to the Interfax agency.

He initially left it open whether compensation would be possible via completely different routes.

Gazprom once again emphasized that it will fulfill all its obligations to European customers.

The contractual maximum capacity for Ukrainian gas transit to Europe is 109 million cubic meters per day.

The main route for Russian gas to Europe, however, is the Baltic Sea pipeline Nord Stream 1. According to Russian information, 60 billion cubic meters of gas per year ran through Nord Stream 1 to Europe.

Two and a half months after the start of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, Moscow announced on Tuesday morning that it had penetrated to the administrative borders of Luhansk together with pro-Russian separatists.

The head of the Ukrainian energy supplier Naftogaz, Yuriy Vitrenko, recently warned the editorial network Germany (RND) that the transit of Russian gas through Ukraine to Western Europe could be endangered if Russia were to continue its attacks on the Ukrainian infrastructure.

Germany is heavily dependent on Russian gas.

Demands for a gas embargo, for example, are therefore very controversial.

According to the latest information from the Economics Ministry, Germany's dependence on Russian gas has fallen from 55 percent to around 35 percent since the beginning of the war.

According to this, a gradual reduction to ten percent of gas consumption is possible by summer 2024.