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North Macedonia reduces Russian gas imports for political reasons — Russian ambassador
Russia's ambassador to North Macedonia, Dmitry Zykov, says Skopje has been cutting Russian gas imports since 2022 for political reasons, despite higher costs of alternatives. He cited data showing Russian gas share fell from 99% in 2021 to 47% in 2025, with new supplies from the UAE and Azerbaijan.
The story is based entirely on an interview given by Russian Ambassador to North Macedonia Dmitry Zykov to the Russian state news agency TASS, published in two separate articles on May 3. No other outlets are referenced in the provided material. Therefore, the coverage represents the ambassador's perspective, which may not reflect the full picture or the views of North Macedonian officials.
Key Claims
The ambassador's remarks contain several specific statistics and assertions that have not been independently verified by other sources:
Decline in Russian gas share: According to Zykov, Russian gas constituted 99% of physical supplies to the Macedonian market in 2021, 77% in 2024, and 47% in 2025.
Emergence of UAE gas: Deliveries from the United Arab Emirates began in the second half of 2025, reaching a 39% market share by year-end, as stated by the ambassador.
Azerbaijani supplies: Starting in early 2026, Azerbaijan began supplying gas to North Macedonia on a regular basis. In the first two months of 2026, Azerbaijani gas accounted for 32% of physical supplies, while Russian gas was 28%, per Zykov's figures.
Cost differential: The ambassador claimed that Azerbaijani gas is "almost twice as expensive" as Russian gas, although no specific prices were provided.
Delivery route: Azerbaijani gas is transported via the Trans-Anatolian and Trans Adriatic pipelines, then from Greece through Bulgaria, according to Zykov.
Perspectives
This article reflects the viewpoint of the Russian ambassador, who frames the reduction of Russian gas imports as a politically motivated decision driven by EU policy influence. The ambassador suggests that North Macedonia is acting against its own economic interests. However, the information is one-sided and lacks official comments from North Macedonian authorities or independent sources. No alternative perspectives or official Macedonian statements are included in the provided material. Readers should consider that this is a Russian state media report and may not fully represent the range of opinions or facts. Additional reporting from other outlets may be necessary to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the situation.
How this outlet told it
TASS — English
Framing: Political decision — Critical
Facts Included:
North Macedonia reducing Russian gas imports since 2022
Russian gas imports share in Macedonian market was 99% in 2021
Russian gas imports share in Macedonian market was 77% in 2024
Russian gas imports share in Macedonian market was 47% in 2025
Deliveries of gas from the UAE started in the second half of 2025
UAE gas share in the Macedonian market was 39% as of 2025 year-end
Each row is one claim, attributed to the outlet whose wording states it most clearly. Confidence rates how directly the source text states the claim — explicit and unhedged rates high; hedged, pieced-together, or internally inconsistent statements rate lower. It does not measure whether the claim is true. Status counts the distinct outlets we found asserting it — so a single-source claim can still show high confidence, and a multi-source claim can show medium. Every one of those outlets is named beside the status, so you can check the count against the list. For claims extracted before we began storing that list, the row says so: it names the outlet the claim is quoted from and states that we have not recorded which outlets backed it. Outlets wrote at different times, so a figure that evolves — a casualty count, for example — can legitimately differ between rows; check the "as of" time next to each claim's source.
Claim
Confidence
Status
ClaimNorth Macedonia has been reducing Russian gas imports since 2022. The country is taking purposeful steps to reduce imports of Russian natural gas in recent years.