MOSCOW, December 22. /TASS/. Russia and Ukraine will continue cooperation in the gas industry after 2019 when the current contracts expire, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said in an interview with Rossiya 24 TV channel on Monday.

“At the moment we have two contracts with Ukraine - on gas transit and gas supplies. The contracts expire in 2019. Therefore, Ukraine will further receive gas, as much as it needs. We believe that after 2019 our cooperation will continue,” Novak said.

However, Russia and Ukraine are conducting no talks on the gas transit after 2019, he said, adding that “Ukraine wants to revise this transit contract.”

Russia-Ukraine gas dispute in 2014

This year saw another one in a series of disputes between Russia’s gas giant Gazprom and Ukraine’s Naftogaz oil and gas company over natural gas supplies, prices, and debts. Such disputes over the years have grown into major matters involving other countries and taking months to solve.

Russia stopped gas flows to Ukraine in June after Ukraine's  Naftogaz oil and gas company stopped paying for the consumed Russian natural gas on March 25. Russia was ready to resume natural gas supplies to Ukraine on condition of debt repayment and upfront payments for new gas deliveries. As of August 1, the overall debt of Naftogaz to Gazprom for supplied gas amounted to about $5.3 billion.

Several months of trilateral talks between between Russia, Ukraine and the European Union resulted in an agreement reached on October 30. According to the agreement, Ukraine will pay (in advance) $378 per 1,000 cubic meters to the end of 2014, and $365 in the first quarter of 2015. As for the debt, Ukraine agreed to pay $1.45 billion to Gazprom immediately, and another $1.65 billion by the end of 2014.