"In 1967, Ukrainian gas began to be exported to Europe," Mykhailo Gonchar, president of the Centre for Global Studies "Strategy XXI", says to the Express. - The first deliveries of Ukrainian natural gas took place for Czechoslovakia, which was part of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance. This was preceded by the commissioning of the gas- condensate Bykov-Babchinsky deposit in 1962. It became the leading in the western gas-bearing region.
And after five years a gas purification plant was built, which allowed the export to be started. To this end, the Bratstvo pipeline was built along the route Dolyna - Uzhgorod - the western border.
Gas was supplied to Europe from Western Ukrainian deposits, which at that time were not yet exhausted. In general, they sold several billion cubic meters of Ukrainian blue fuel. It was the beginning of a Soviet long-term strategy to increase gas production in the Soviet Union for its export."
According to M. Gonchar, in the 1960s, Ukraine supplied its own gas to other republics of the Soviet Union, in particular, to Russia. "But Russia prefers to remain silent today. For example, in Ukraine, in the Bilche-Volitskoye field, gas was delivered to the trans-republic gas pipelines Dashawa - Minsk - Vilnius - Riga, Dashawa - Kyiv - Bryansk - Moscow in the early 1960s. That is, Moscow then was heated with our gas."
