Gas crisis talks held in Moscow

Russia’s president said today his country would do everything in its power to end a dispute with Ukraine that has led to drastic cuts in Russian gas supplies to Europe.

President Dmitry Medvedev held talks with Ukrainian and European officials in Moscow in hopes of resolving the crisis and ending an 11-day halt in deliveries through Ukrainian pipelines.

“Unfortunately all the efforts have brought no results so far, and people living in European countries still don’t have heat,” Medvedev said before the talks began.

The gas cut-off has deepened Europe’s winter chill, leaving homes without heat and forcing factories to shut.

The dispute has hurt the reputation of both Russia and Ukraine in Europe, and EU nations have criticised the two ex-Soviet nations for allowing their politically charged price dispute to affect deliveries.

Ukraine’s pipeline network normally carries about 80% of the Russian gas that goes to Europe.

“We will do everything we can to resolve the current crisis,” Medvedev said.

But with each side adamant the other is to blame, there was no sign a solution to their dispute was imminent.

“The main task now is to restore the movement of Russian gas to Europe,” Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, said before leaving Kiev for the talks in Moscow. “Ukraine needs this most of all, because our image as a transit state is damaged.”

But she said reaching a deal to restore supplies would be extremely difficult.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, in Germany early today, said Russia also wanted deliveries restored. But he said Moscow was only protecting its interests from what he described as Ukraine’s theft of Russian gas.

Putin and Tymoshenko met briefly before joining top EU energy officials and government officials from other European and ex-Soviet nations in the Kremlin, where Medvedev hosted what had been billed as a summit with European gas-consuming nations.

No EU heads of state attended. The EU was represented by the 27-nation bloc’s Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs and Czech Energy Minister Martin Riman, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency.

The EU has threatened to review its relations with the ex-Soviet neighbours if weekend talks fail to bring a resolution.

Russia was enlisting European gas companies for a consortium that could end the crisis by paying for gas needed to get Ukraine’s pipeline up and running and ensure deliveries. It was unclear whether Ukraine would agree to that proposal.

Ukraine’s leaders have accused Russia of using the dispute to seek control over its pipeline system.

Russia stopped shipping gas to Ukraine for domestic use on January 1 when the countries could not agree on a price, then accused Ukraine of siphoning off gas bound for Europe and turned off the taps entirely on January 7.

Russia resumed piping a limited amount gas toward Ukraine on Tuesday after both agreed to have EU monitors check flows, but the gas did not reach Europe.