OREANDA-NEWS. Kazakhstan has not confirmed the information of the Ukrainian side that Russia has blocked the transit of coal from Kazakhstan to Ukraine. This was announced on Friday, November 5, by Madiyar Uakpayev, spokesman for the republic's Ministry of Industry and Infrastructure Development.

"Russia has not completely blocked the supply of coal, but there are some restrictions due to infrastructure congestion on the Russian side," he told TASS.

Earlier in the day, Andrei Gerus, head of the Verkhovna Rada committee on energy and utilities, said Russia had stopped the transit of coal from Kazakhstan to Ukraine. He noted that all deliveries for November were blocked. At the same time, Gerus explained that the matter concerns only deliveries of thermal coal, the restrictions do not affect coking coal.

On the same day, Fatherland MP Ivan Krulko, first deputy chairman of the budget committee, said that as of 4 November, more than half of the power units at thermal power plants in Ukraine were out of operation. So, only 37 out of 88 power units are operational.

On 29 October, Gerus said that starting from 1 November, Russia will stop supplying thermal coal to Ukraine. He said that such a decision can be compared to an energy war.

In his turn, the first deputy chairman of the Duma committee on energy, Igor Ananskikh, added that Ukraine had not signed new contracts with Russian coal companies, which is why it will stop receiving coal. At the same time, he pointed out that there is no politics in this issue.

On 28 October, Verkhovna Rada MP Lyudmyla Buymister said that the energy sector in Ukraine was currently facing a disastrous situation. Such an outcome was a consequence of a failure in the process of procuring coal reserves and a lack of support for local extractive companies, the MP is convinced.

On 13 October, Ukrenerho said in a report that the stock of coal at Ukrainian thermal power plants (TPPs) was about 3.9 times lower than necessary. The national energy company said that the total reserves decreased by 6.5 percent to 666,600 tonnes.