TASS: Prime minister says Russia dropped South Stream gas pipe project for legal reasons
Moscow’s decision to drop the South Stream gas pipeline project intended to pump Russian natural gas directly to Europe bypassing transit states was based on purely legal grounds, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said on Tuesday.
“The decision made by the Russian Federation is not of political or, all the more so, of emotional nature. This is a legal decision,” the premier said at a meeting with Energy Minister Alexander Novak and Gazprom CEO Alexey Miller.
All of Russia’s attempts to start work on this project ended in nothing, he said. “We were forced to quit the project,” he added.
The premier said Russia has some other ideas and is ready for cooperation but on the terms it would be able to accept.