Many news media have written that Alexander Nikolov, Minister of Energy of Bulgaria, said in an interview that he regrets the refusal to pay for Russian gas in rubles and considers this decision premature. We decided to check if he said something like that.
Many leading Russian media wrote about this news: "Gazeta.ru", Lenta.ru, "News", "Russian newspaper", "Tsargrad", TV channel "Star", REGNUM, "Arguments and Facts", "Moscow Komsomolets", Life and others. Some publications write that Nikolov called the abandonment of Russian gas premature, others hasty. Some note that when buying gas in the USA, Bulgaria has to be paid much more, so she wants to buy gas in Russia again.
It is not difficult to check the correctness of this news: almost all publications that published it refer to interview Alexander Nikolov Bulgarian television channel BTV, many even apply a link. However, if you open it, the decoding shows that Nikolov spoke neither about haste or premature. We turned to native speakers of the Bulgarian language, and they confirmed that there was nothing like this in an interview.
Most publications cite this quote in confirmation of their words: “The level of solidarity and unity should be as high as possible. The European Commission made it clear that payments in rubles are a violation of sanctions. The question is whether to distinguish between corporations and state companies. ” This is the answer to the journalist’s question, whether pan -European negotiations are planned to buy Russian gas if Germany and Italy begin to pay for it in rubles. However, in this quote there is nothing about premature, haste or desire to resume gas purchases in Russia. And it is quite difficult to make a similar conclusion out of it.
When the journalist asks Nikolov about negotiations with Gazprom under a new long-term contract, he responds quite categorically: “At a time when, firstly, the state (Russia.-approx. Ed.) Is at war and is a deliberately aggressor, and secondly, a specific company (Gazprom.-Ed.) Is used as a political tool for creating stress in the system, and Thirdly, the most unpleasant in the commercial part is an unpredictable partner, I don’t think it makes sense to comment on whether it is worth conducting further negotiations with the company. ” This quote refutes the media statements that Bulgaria is supposedly going to resume purchases of Russian gas.
In addition, Nikolov continues to insist that the terms of the transaction with the new American supplier are much more profitable than what Gazprom proposed: “At the time of signing in the United States, the price of the agreed tanker was better than the delivery price from Gazprom Export.” The minister did not reveal to the reporters a specific value, but still this completely contradicts the words of some Russian media that Bulgaria now has to pay for gas much more and therefore she wants to resume purchases in Russia.
Thus, the majority of the Russian media, who placed this news in themselves, either incorrectly interpreted the words of Alexander Nikolov, or deliberately attributed to him what he did not say. One would have thought that Nikolov, perhaps, said something like somewhere else. But the authors of news notes refer to a specific interview, give quotes from it (not containing, by the way, loud words from the header) and even place a link, which means that their articles are based on this interview. And all of them are definitely incorrect.
Fake
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