The bitter divorce between Ukraine and Russia continues.
 Russian prime minister Dmitry Medvedev reportedly said Saturday that Kyiv can forget signing any natural gas delivery deals with state-owned Gazprom solely on its terms.
“We won’t extend the transit contract with Ukraine on disadvantageous terms,” Medvedev said in the interview with Slovenian newspaper Delo, published on Saturday. He is heading to the country on Sunday for a two day official visit.
Ukraine’s deal with Gazprom will expire on Jan. 2, 2020. If it isn’t extended, there will be no legal framework for gas deliveries to and through Ukraine, the PM said.
The country is an important transit hub for Russian natural gas heading for the European Union. Some 40% of Russia’s E.U.-inbound gas comes from Ukraine. But a bitter split between Kyiv and Moscow have threatened the security of that transit route, with Russia now inking deals with Turkey to build a new pipeline into Europe.
Ukraine and Russia have been locking horns since 2014 following the ouster of pro-Russia president Viktor Yanukovych in February. A pro-Western government was installed, led by Arseniy “Yats” Yatsenyuk, and Kyiv quickly moved to sign trade deals with Europe, something Russian president Vladimir Putin was successful at getting Yanukovych to side-swipe in favor of a below-market price for Gazprom gas.
Those days are gone. The subsidy is over. Russia and Ukraine have gone their separate ways, for the most part, and Europe has been thrust in the middle as peace broker, both on the natural gas front and on the military front.
Russia annexed Crimea in March 2014 and has been backing rebel fights in eastern Ukrainian cities for over a year now. Russia denies it is backing separatist groups, but various reports on the ground by the Associated Press have shown that local rebel commanders in regions like Donetsk speak of their off-the-reservation support by “Uncle Putin”.