Ukraine is discussing the sending of natural gas from Azerbaijan to the European Union, in the context of which it wants to maintain its role as a transit country and help its neighbors in the West to be able to ensure their energy security, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Wednesday in – an interview given to Bloomberg News.

An agreement to replace Russian gas with Azerbaijani gas is “one of the proposals” currently being discussed, Volodymyr Zelenski said. “There are several cabinet officials dealing with this now,” Zelenski said.

Europe has tried to give up Russian gas, but several countries in Eastern Europe continue to receive Russian gas through a pipeline that crosses Ukraine. The agreement regulating the transit of Russian gas through Ukraine expires at the end of this year. In the context in which the war continues, most analysts expect Russian gas deliveries to be stopped, according to Agerpres.

“Alternative measures are currently being analyzed and how we can use the pipelines with another gas supplier, with another country. Negotiations are ongoing,” Zelenski said. “We don’t want to extend the gas transit contract with the Russian Federation. We don’t want them to make money here,” the Ukrainian president emphasized.

The use of Ukraine’s gas pipeline network would provide an important source of financing for Ukraine’s war-torn economy. Revenue collected by Ukraine from the transit of natural gas amounted to about one billion dollars in 2021. There are also concerns that the pipelines could become military targets or become damaged and expensive to repair.

“If this is a normal contract for the supply of non-Russian gas to European countries that call on us, then we as future EU members will have to support our friends,” Zelenskiy said.

Ukraine was once the main transit route for Russian natural gas to Europe, covering almost a quarter of the EU’s needs. But transit collapsed after Russia launched alternative routes bypassing Ukraine and especially after Moscow limited supplies to major European importers at the height of the energy crisis. Currently, Russia supplies Europe with approximately 15 billion cubic meters of gas per year via Ukraine, mainly to Slovakia and Austria.