OREANDA-NEWS Ukraine continues to receive money from Russia for gas transit to Europe, despite the fighting, Russian President Vladimir Putin said.

"They receive money from us for transit, as strange as it may sound. The aggressor, the aggressor, but the money does not smell, they cash the money for transit. Few people talk about this either," the head of state said in an interview with the author of the Moscow program. Kremlin. Putin" to Pavel Zarubin.

The journalist posted a fragment of the interview on his telegram channel.

"Do they get money from Gazprom? They get it," Putin added. He recalled that "one line of the gas pipeline runs through Ukraine, but there is another one - the Ukrainian side has closed it." "They closed it, not us. What is the point of closing?" - the president remarked.

"What is the problem - to open the second line, for Germany. Yes, please. We have something to blame," Putin said, recalling that there is also a gas supply route through Poland.

The head of state also said that the Europeans themselves should decide whether they need Russian gas.

"Let (the Europeans) decide for themselves whether they need to take (gas), if not, we will do without," the Russian president said.

Putin added that everything depends only on the decision of the German government. Nord Stream 2 - one thread has been preserved despite the terrorist attack," he said.

At Nord Stream 2, the president continued, "unscrew the valve, say: "We want to receive," they will start receiving tomorrow. It takes a week. Well, they don't want to, apparently, they expected that if they didn't take our gas, we would fall apart faster than they would have irreversible processes. But irreversible processes are actually starting to occur," Putin said.

According to him, the industry is moving to other countries, including the United States, where more favorable conditions have been created and where energy resources have turned out to be cheaper.

"Thank God, we are coping. We have sent supplies to other routes, if we are talking about abroad, we are starting to work more on our own gasification, on using these energy carriers to solve domestic economic problems not only in the housing and communal services system, but also for the economy and industry," the president said.

At the same time, he agreed that before the volume of energy supplies brought more money, "maybe it was more fun, but on the other hand, the less we depend on energy, the better, because our non-energy part of the economy is growing much faster than before." "It's always when it's easy to get money, then dependence arises, when you need to think, then other mechanisms turn on, they have earned," Putin said.