MOSCOW, August 28. /TASS/. Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia has alternative routes for supplies to Europe, commenting on the Ukrainian authorities' refusal to extend the agreement on Russian gas transit.

"There are alternative routes, there are plans to create a hub in Turkey, this work is in progress," he told reporters.

The decision not to extend the gas transit contract with Gazprom, which expires at the end of this year, was announced earlier by Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky.

In October 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin put forward the idea of creating a hub on Turkish territory to redirect the lost transit volumes via the Nord Stream gas pipeline. At the end of December 2023, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak announced that the implementation of the hub project could begin in 2024.