Russian and Ukrainian officials have not reached a deal leading to the resumption of Russian gas supplies, squelching hopes for an end to a dispute that has left parts of Europe in the cold and dark.
EU representatives started work in Ukraine’s capital, Kiev, to monitor the flow of gas on Friday, offering an independent assessment that was critical to sealing a bargain.
But Russia said it would only restart pumping gas to Europe via Ukraine after a written deal was signed.
PHOTO: EPA
Russia wants monitors in place to prevent what it described as Ukraine’s theft of supplies meant for Europe — a charge Kiev hotly denies.
“Our goal is to show who is to blame for stealing gas,” Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said. “Such thievery can’t be left unaccountable.”
Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko rejected the notion.
“Ukraine is not stealing gas,” he told reporters angrily.
Gazprom halted all natural gas shipments through Ukraine on Wednesday, ending or reducing gas supplies to more than a dozen European nations amid a pricing dispute with Kiev.
Russia in the past has sold gas to Ukraine and some other former-Soviet neighbors at prices significantly less than European prices.
Medvedev said on Friday that Ukraine should pay a European price for the Russian gas.
Last year, Russia charged Ukraine US$179.50 per 1,000m³, about half what it charged its European customers.
Russia’s last offer before talks broke down was US$250, but Gazprom said the offer no longer stands after Ukraine rejected it and that it will charge Ukraine US$450.
EU governments have criticized both Russia and Ukraine for the gas crisis, saying it was unacceptable to see homes unheated, businesses closed and schools shut down in the middle of winter because of the commercial squabble.
Russia, Ukraine and the EU said the final agreement could be finalized soon, but officials remained coy about what prevented the deal from being completed on Friday as hoped.
Ukraine’s Naftogaz state gas company spokesman Valentyn Zemlyansky said it was resisting what he described as the Russian push for control over Ukraine’s gas transportation network.
Gazprom chief executive officer Alexei Miller pledged that Gazprom would resume shipments to Europe once the monitoring teams deployed to pipeline pumping stations across Ukraine — a country roughly the size of South Africa or Texas.
But Medvedev emphasized that Russia would resume deliveries to Europe only after a written agreement was in place.
“Regrettably, we don’t have any faith left in Ukraine’s good intentions,” he said.
Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek, whose country holds the EU presidency, visited Kiev on Friday to help wrap up the monitoring deal.
“We want to help overcome the crisis of confidence,” Topolanek said after talks with Yushchenko. “Russia wants to ship gas, Ukraine wants to transit it. This problem must be solved.”
Yushchenko insisted that his nation “religiously fulfills its transit mission.”
“But there is one problem: This gas must be supplied from Russia,” he said.
Ukraine had initially opposed including Russians in the EU monitoring team, but finally accepted their presence on Friday, Miller said.
Ukrainian and the EU officials confirmed that Russians officials were welcome to join the mission.
“It is now imperative that the gas starts to flow,” the EU said in a statement.
Once gas shipments resume, it “will take at least three days” for the first gas to reach European consumers, EU spokesman Ferran Terradellas said.
The halt in gas supplies has left European nations struggling to cope during a harsh winter.
At least 11 people have frozen to death this week in Europe, including 10 in Poland, where temperatures have sunk to minus 25ºC.
Fifteen countries — Austria, Bulgaria, Bosnia, Croatia, the Czech Republic, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Turkey — said their Russian supplies ceased on Wednesday.
Germany and Poland reported substantial drops in supplies.
Naftogaz promised the first gas supplies would go to Bulgaria, where thousands of homes are without heating and factories have been shut.
The Sofia Zoo in the Bulgarian capital declared an emergency on Friday after being left with no central heating.
The zoo was using electric heaters for its 1,300 animals, some of which needed temperatures of at least 20ºC, zoo director Ivan Ivanov said.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in