Welcome to Hard Talk on the BBC World Service with me, Stephen Sacker.

My guest today wields power and influence in a country under enormous political,

economic and military pressure.

Yuri Vichenko is the CEO of Naftogas, Ukraine's giant state-owned energy company,

which not only extracts and supplies fossil fuels,

but also runs the world's most extensive network of energy transit infrastructure.

Ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine's role as middleman, maintaining the pipelines

delivering Russian gas to Europe,

has been a pillar of the Ukrainian economy. But things are changing fast. Russia now has other

supply lines bypassing Ukraine. The latest and most controversial, the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline

runs under the Baltic direct to Germany. Now, it's been built,

it hasn't yet been brought online. And all of this now matters more than ever before. Russian military

forces amassed close to Ukraine's borders. The Americans say Putin could launch a major offensive

at any time. What would that mean for Ukraine

and for Europe in terms of future energy supplies? Well, Yuri Vitrenko joins me now. Welcome to Hard Talk.

Hello. What is it like trying to run one of Ukraine's biggest, most important businesses in this current

climate of crisis?

Under the current circumstances, of course it's a very hot seat because I have to do a lot

of geopolitics and sometimes it looks like a military exercise rather than just running a company

because we are on the front line. Many of Ukraine's key fossil fuel assets are in the Donbas region.

That, I imagine, is a profound problem in itself. Also, you have this very complicated relationship with Russia

when it comes to transshipment of fossil fuels. On both those levels, I imagine business is extraordinarily

...