Czech Republic, Slovakia asking Brussels to keep oil supplies from Russia

The Czech Republic and Slovakia will not be able to exist without Russian oil, which is why they have applied to Brussels with a request to keep supplies of Russian oil, Chief Executive Officer of Transneft Nikolay Tokarev told the Rossiya-24 TV channel.

"Both the Czech Republic and Slovakia have applied to Brussels with a request to keep those volumes of Russian oil supplies as they indeed have no access to the sea and they cannot receive oil from other sources. The Czechs have a bit from the side of Trieste via another oil pipeline, though overall they will simply not be able to exist without Russian oil," he said.

Earlier reports said that prime ministers of Slovakia and the Czech Republic, Robert Fico and Petr Fiala, to some extent bought into the extension of exemptions to sanctions on use of products from Russian oil for one year in their countries.