Moldova announced its readiness to pay only $8.6 million of debt to Gazprom

Moldova is ready to pay $8.6 million out of the $709 million debt declared by Gazprom. This was stated by the Minister of Energy of the Republic Viktor Parlikov.

“This is the result of more complex calculations related to both debt and claims that we can make against Gazprom,” the minister said (quote by Interfax). The amount of undocumented debts, according to him, is $276 million.

In the fall of 2022, Gazprom reported that the debt of Moldovagaz for the supplied gas was $433 million, and taking into account late payments, $709 million. The Moldovan government decided to conduct an independent audit to clarify this figure.

September 3, President of the Republic Maia Sandu statedthat the audit did not reveal the debt of the Moldovan company. Sandu noted that in negotiations with Gazprom before the winter season of 2021, the Russian side decided not to renew the contract “at the last moment”, and Moscow, according to her, wanted to “quickly deceive” the Moldovan delegation.

In July, Parlikov reported that the results of the audit were “interesting”. The minister noted that during the inspection, funds were identified that were unreasonably used by the Moldovagaz company.