MOSCOW — Russia further cut natural gas supplies to Belarus on Wednesdayto 60 percent of normal volume a day after the president of Belarus ordered a halt to the transit of Russian gas to Europe amid a conflict that has raised further questions about Moscow’s reliability as an energy supplier.
The conflict started on Monday when Russia began restricting natural gas flows into Belarus as a way to recover more than $200 million for unpaid gas deliveries that Moscow says the country owes.
Aleksei B. Miller, the chief executive of the Russian state-owned gas giant Gazprom, announced the additional supply cuts at a news conference on Wednesday.
“The news is bad,” Mr. Miller said. “Belarus has still not taken any action to reimburse the debt for deliveries of Russian gas”.
He added that despite threats from President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko of Belarus, natural gas continued to flow through Belarus to the European Union.
Mr. Lukashenko ordered a halt to the transits on Tuesday, accusing Gazprom of failing to pay $260 million in fees to transport gas through Belarus’s pipeline to Europe, which carries roughly a fifth of Russia’s westward exports. He also warned of a brewing “gas war” with Russia.
“I have ordered my government to stop transit through Belarus as long as Gazprom does not pay for the transit,” Mr. Lukashenko said in a meeting with Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov. “They have not paid one kopeck for a half a year”.
