In a letter to EU country leaders, Vladimir Putin announced Gazprom’s decision, in effect from June 1st, to ask the Ukraine to prepay the amount of natural gas that it wants to consume.

As stated in his letter “we had to make this decision” as debts to the Russian company did not decrease after the last talks in April on the subject, but, instead, increased from 2.2 billion dollars to 3.5 billion, despite the fact that Kiev received its first IMF loan tranche.

Putin also noted that Russia has not yet received any proposals from EU partners on how the Ukraine situation will be stabilized so that the Urkainians can meet their contractual obligations.

Nevertheless, he stressed that the Russian Federation is still open for a continued dialogue with EU countries to normalize the situation by expressing his hope that the EU Commission will rely on talks even more in order to find fair solutions to stabilize the Ukrainian economy.