Moscow on Wednesday refuted allegations by the West that Russia is using gas as a political weapon in its dialogue with Moldova.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov refuted the allegations in an interview with Sputnik on Wednesday.

“We noticed that some of our Western colleagues, including the noticeably more active EU High Representative, Mr Borrell, commented on the positive agreements on gas,” Lavrov told reporters after a meeting with his Moldovan counterpart, Nikolae Popescu. “For some reason considered it to be possible and appropriate to accuse Russia of exerting political pressure. This is not the case.” 

At the beginning of November, Moldovan deputy prime minister Andrei Spinu said his country would receive around three billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas per year, in line with a contract signed recently with Russia following a dispute in which Moscow threatened to stop supplies.

The deal was struck after Russia’s natural gas giant Gazprom and the Moldovan government signed a new five-year contract for Russian gas supplies. 

(Sputnik/NAN)