The European Union (EU) has discussed liquefied natural gas (LNG) contract swaps with South Korea and Japan, but will proceed with a contingency plan of asking partners to divert some of their LNG.

It is in favour of the bloc only in the event of interruption of supplies, spokesman for Climate Action and Energy at European Commission, Tim McPhie, said on Monday.

“The discussions about contract swaps, we have talked about this with some of our Asian partners, with Japan, with Korea.

“It is rather in the case, where we will have an interruption of supply, so we haven’t to my knowledge activated any of those as of yet,’’ McPhie said during a briefing.

On Feb. 24, Russia began a special operation to demilitarise and denazify” Ukraine, responding to calls for help from the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics in countering the aggression of Ukrainian troops.

Moscow has repeatedly said that it has no plans to occupy Ukraine.

In response to the operation, a number of Western countries have imposed sanctions against Russia.

European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, said that the EU was determined to stop its dependency on Russian gas since Moscow allegedly used energy as a political instrument.