The volume of natural gas flowing through the Druzhba pipeline has already decreased, as Ukrainian troops allegedly took over the station at Sudzha, in Russia’s Kursk Region, former Slovak economy minister Karel Hirman has warned.

Heavy fighting has reportedly been taking place near Sudzha since Tuesday, when more than a thousand Ukrainian troops crossed the Russian border. 

“Russian gas supplies through Ukraine towards Slovakia are seriously endangered,” Hirman said Thursday in a Facebook post, noting that the flow has dropped to 37.25 million cubic meters, the lowest daily volume since May 2023. Previously, said Hirman, the pipeline held steady at 42 million cubic meters. 

The former economy minister was following up on his press conference in Bratislava on Wednesday, when he warned that the flow of Russian natural gas through Ukraine could be “completely halted” as the result of the fighting.

Slovakia’s gas utility SPP claims to have prepared for the possibility of disruptions in supply for years and looked at alternative sources. 

Officially, the goal of Kiev’s operation is to instill “fear” in the Russian population, according to Vladimir Zelensky’s adviser Mikhail Podoliak. 

The US needs to “yank the chain of the neo-Nazis in the Ukrainian army” and stop supplying Ukraine with weapons, the Russian envoy in Washington, Anatoly Antonov, has said. The American government has yet to do anything, however, saying only it has reached out to Kiev for more information.

Even after the outbreak of Russia-Ukraine hostilities in February 2022, Gazprom continued to send fuel through Ukrainian territory, paying transit fees to Kiev that helped fuel Ukraine’s war effort. The Ukrainian government recently insisted on stopping all Russian exports, however.  

Sudzha is the last remaining gas metering station in operation between Ukraine and Russia. In early 2022, Ukraine shut off the Sohranovka station in Donbass. In August that year, Kiev demanded that all gas flows be redirected through Sudzha, which Moscow rejected.

The following month, the twin Nord Stream pipelines running between Russia and Germany were sabotaged and heavily damaged. No one has officially taken responsibility for the explosions, although the US sought to deflect accusations by blaming “rogue” Ukrainian elements.