The Ukrainian side is presenting this decision of an international arbitration panel of judges from Sweden, Switzerland and Israel as final, which is why it is demanding immediate satisfaction of the payment claim. The Ukrainian side noted in the statement of claim that since May 2022, Gazprom has violated its contractual obligations under the “take or pay” principle by stopping payments. In September 2022, Naftohaz initiated arbitration, which Gazprom tried to block through Russian courts.
Russian online publication RBC specifies that the amount of $1.37 billion included the debt for gas transit through Ukraine under the 2019 agreement, penalties and compensation for legal costs. It is noted that in January 2024, and then in April 2025, the Arbitration Court of St. Petersburg determined a court penalty for Naftohaz in the amount of $1.35 billion, which the Ukrainian company must pay in case of violation of the ban on proceedings with Gazprom in foreign courts.
“Gazprom believes that in May 2022, Russian gas supplies through Ukraine were reduced due to the inability to transfer all flows to the Suja gas metering station (GMS).” Ukraine stopped receiving gas through the Sohranivka GMS, after which Naftohaz filed a lawsuit in international arbitration. “In its turn, Gazprom said that it fulfilled the terms of the agreement to the extent possible under the current circumstances.
This is not the first court case between Naftogaz and Gazprom in international instances. However, while before 2022 the decisions were sometimes directly opposite, after the start of the military conflict they are mostly in favor of the Ukrainian state-owned operator.
In this regard, Deutshce Welle states that several decisions of international arbitration courts have already accumulated, under which Kiev is going to recover a total of $6.9 billion dollars from Russia (mostly from Gazprom).
