Most of the gas debt was not due to non-payment of bills by the Ukrainians.

A little about the lack of profitability of Naftogaz. I’m not an expert in futures mixing, so let’s look at the situation from the other side.
The so-called “opening” of the gas market, which, according to Andrey Kobolev, head of the board of NJSC Naftogaz of Ukraine, was supposed to free Ukrainians from “gas bondage” as of August 1, he could not solve the main problem of the company: the debt of 100 billion dollars accumulated during the period of PSO.
Interestingly, most of this debt was not due to non-payment of bills by the Ukrainians, but to unprofessional actions of government agencies and, in particular, the Cabinet of Ministers.
Several people’s deputies are actively lobbying for the interests of Naftogaz, promoting the following bills: amendments to the Law of Ukraine “On the Natural Gas Market” (No. 3800); Amendments to the Law of Ukraine “On the State Budget of Ukraine for 2020” and the Tax Code of Ukraine (No. 4119 and No. 4120).
But the options to solve the problem of debts that are proposed in these bills will lead in one way or another to the consumer to pay more. Even the option of debt compensation using funds from the state budget is, in fact, a way of transferring funds from the pocket of each Ukrainian to the pocket of Naftogaz.
At the same time, Naftogaz is blocking, through the deputies, the consideration of bill No. 3800-1, which proposes a mechanism to cancel the debt accumulated among the participants in the JI mechanism, which will not affect the pockets of the ordinary Ukrainians.
And naturally, Naftogaz doesn’t like this, because it will hurt. This is a Rubicon between the state (all Ukrainians) and personal hair, as a famous movie hero used to say.