MOSCOW, April 06. /ITAR-TASS/. Statements of Ukrainian authorities over possible liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies from the United States are acts of political populism and cannot affect Russian gas giant Gazprom’s position over gas contract prices for Ukraine, spokesman of the Russian gas monopoly Sergey Kupriyanov said live on TV news channel Rossiya-24 on Sunday.

In his words, gas supplies from the U.S. cannot become an alternative to Russian gas delivery primarily due to lack of free gas amount for export in the near future. Meanwhile, there is no special tanker fleet for LNG delivery from the U.S. and construction of this fleet will take much time and free capacity at the shipyards that the world does not have now.

U.S. authorities stated earlier that in case of overseas gas delivery to Ukraine the gas price would hardly be lower than that from Russia, Kupriyanov noted.

This week due to denouncement of the Kharkov agreements on the Black Sea Fleet Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has signed a resolution cancelling zero gas customs duties for Ukraine that automatically increased the ‘blue fuel’ price for Ukraine to 485 dollars per 1,000 cubic metres. This government resolution has an effect on legal relations since April 2, 2014.