Nearly four years after failing to agree on a price for Russian gas shipments, Ukraine’s state-owned energy company has declared victory in international arbitration that orders Russia’s Gazprom to pay $2.56 billion.
The long-running dispute accompanied deteriorating diplomatic relations between the countries after Russia’s 2014 annexation of the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine. Kyiv accused Moscow of failing to return $1 billion worth of gas during the annexation, a claim that Gazprom had denied. The sides also butted heads over a Russian price hike for gas against cheaper prices for Gazprom’s European consumers.
