ATHENS, December 11. /TASS/. Russia covers over 40% of Greece’s demand for natural gas and has even increased gas supplies recently, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an English-language interview with Greece’s Antenna TV channel.

"Do you know how many percent of Greece’s demand for natural gas is being covered by Russia?" Peskov said, addressing the interviewer. "A little bit more than 40%," he pointed out. "Russia is continuing to fulfill all its obligations to Greek buyers and will continue to do that. We have even increased the shipments within the framework of the acting long-term agreements. And do you know what happened with American suppliers? They have decreased their shipments to Greece 43% because they started to send their gas to the Far East and the southeastern region because natural gas is a little more expensive there," the Kremlin spokesman noted.

According to Peskov, it is about "a mutual interdependence" between Russia and the European Union that "brings stability and predictability." "This is what we are trying to explain to the Europeans but Brussels - we don’t understand why - but Brussels has chosen the spot market and Brussels has chosen the renewables," he went on to say. "But renewables are not constant. One year you have lots of wind, one year you don’t, and the climate is unpredictable right now," Peskov noted.

When asked if Moscow was willing to help the Greek people who had been hit hard by high gas prices, the Kremlin spokesman said: "Would you like us to send natural gas free of charge?" According to him, gas prices are stable and have only skyrocketed on the spot market. "The prices within the framework of the acting agreements are bound with certain formulas based on oil prices," Peskov explained.

In response to the question if Russia could give Greece a discount, he answered in the negative, stressing that "those are mutual agreements." He pointed out that when a country signed a long-lasting agreement with Gazprom, it would receive gas at a predictable price and not at a price that "can go from $400 to $1,100 overnight." "It will be fixed," Peskov emphasized.