„According to contract … failure of obligations automatically leads to a switch to prepayment for gas deliveries for Ukraine starting from June 1,“ Novak said Thursday in a statement, according to Reuters

There’s something unsettling in the culture of our country. Or in what’s left of the „culture“ of this country. For the last two years now, we’ve been living in what I’ve defined as the “permanent coup d‘état”. I recognise that it’s a clear, radical definition. And I also recognise that it’s something that lots of people might not agree with. I’ve been told that, rather than talking about „coup d‘état“, I should have talked about a state of permanent exception, or of permanent emergency. The fact is – and at least I’m allowed to say this – that over the last two years, our Constitution, our constitutional way of doing things, has been subject to a series of transformations that, even though they haven’t altered the provisions written in the Constitution, they have, in fact, made it possible to transition from a parliamentary government to a presidential one. What I find disturbing is that coming from those very people whose profession means they should be dealing with all this, that is the constitutionalists, there has been a deafening silence all this time, a silence that continues to this day. They have nothing to say about everything that has been happening, nothing to object to.