The German government considers the preservation of Ukrainian transit along with the operation of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project to be very important, the German Foreign Ministry said, commenting on Moscow’s statement about interest in this route of Russian gas deliveries.

On Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the agreement on the transit of Russian gas to Europe via Ukraine would stay in force for the entire period of its validity, and Moscow was not planning to abandon the Ukrainian transit route even after the expiration of the treaty.

“As an answer, I would like to point to the recent statement of the official representative of the German government Steffen Seibert: for the federal government it has always been and remains the most important thing for Ukraine, even with Nord Stream 2, to remain a transit country, therefore we intensively advocated that so that with European mediation — you remember that we had an official in charge of this topic — Russia and Ukraine concluded a new transit agreement,” the ministry’s spokesperson said.

This agreement “became an important signal for ensuring European security in gas supply,” he added, quoting Seibert.