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Putin warns Ukraine over NATO

"It's horrible to say and even horrible to think ... Russia could target its missile systems at Ukraine ... Imagine that for a second."

Vladimir Putin, Russian president

The Russian and Ukrainian presidents averted a threatened cutoff of natural gas supplies to Ukraine on Tuesday, at the same time that the Russian president said his country might aim nuclear missiles at Ukraine if it followed through on its intention to join NATO.

"It's horrible to say and even horrible to think," Russian President Vladimir Putin said about the prospect of possibly aiming missiles at Ukraine.

Putin made the remarks in response to a question at a Kremlin news conference. After speaking for a time about Ukraine's long cultural ties to Russia, he said NATO might deploy anti-missile systems in Ukraine and that Russia would have to respond.

"Russia could target its missile systems at Ukraine," he said. "Imagine that for a second."

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, who was sitting beside Putin at the news conference, responded, saying Ukraine had the right to choose its own alliances and that his country's Constitution prohibited foreign military bases on its territory.

Putin and Yushchenko called the news conference to announce that they had resolved a dispute just minutes before the deadline for a threatened midwinter shut-off of a quarter of Ukraine's heating fuel.

On Thursday, Gazprom, the world's largest natural gas producer and a monopoly half-owned by the Russian government, demanded a settlement for what it said was US$1.5 billion in debt and threatened to halt 25 percent of Ukraine's natural gas supply at 6pm on Tuesday.

The two leaders announced the deal a few minutes before 6pm.

The disagreement had worried European governments because as much as 80 percent of Gazprom's supplies to Western Europe cross Ukrainian soil, snaking through a network of old Soviet-designed pipelines from gas wells in the Arctic to homes and factories in the West.

Yushchenko said that Ukraine would start repaying the Gazprom debt today.

Two years ago, Gazprom halted shipments of natural gas to Ukraine in the middle of winter in another dispute. That was a year after the so-called Orange Revolution installed Yushchenko's pro-Western government in Kiev, leading critics to call the shut-off politically motivated, which Gazprom denied.

The latest dispute, too, follows a change in government in Kiev. Yulia Tymoshenko, a leader of the Orange Revolution, resumed her duties as prime minister after elections last fall.

Tymoshenko has said Ukraine should revise what it charges Gazprom to ship gas across its territory.

Gazprom's threat to cut off the gas came 22 days after Ukraine's pro-Western leaders formally applied to be put on a path to NATO membership.

The letter, signed by the president, prime minister and speaker of Parliament, asked NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer to review Ukraine's status in time for an alliance summit meeting in April in Romania.

In what is perhaps a favorable sign for Ukraine's bid, US President George W. Bush will attend the meeting and is scheduled to visit Ukraine afterward, Bloomberg News reported.
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