Gas crisis: Ukraine 'at fault'

2009-01-06 14:05

Moscow - Ukraine has shut down three of four pipelines which export Russian gas to Europe, severely disrupting supplies, Gazprom vice president Alexander Medvedev charged on Tuesday, Russian news agencies reported.

Ukraine closed the pipelines overnight, Medvedev was quoted as saying in London by RIA Novosti and Itar-Tass.

"As a result, from this morning deliveries of Russian gas to our partners in the European Union were reduced by a factor of seven," he said, according to the news agencies.

He identified the three closed pipelines as the Progress, the Soyuz and the Urengoi-Pomary-Uzhgorod, RIA Novosti reported.

Medvedev reiterated Gazprom's view that Ukraine is entirely at fault in the deepening gas crisis and appealed to Russia's "partners" in the European Union, which has experienced shortfalls in gas supplies as a result of the dispute.

"We are meeting this challenge together with our European partners," Medvedev was quoted as saying by RIA Novosti.

"This is a matter of unprecedented irresponsibility of a country across whose territory we deliver 80% of our gas to Europe. This is a matter of absolute irresponsibility," he said.

"We are hostages of the situation, we cannot do anything in this situation," said the vice president of the world's largest gas company.

The comments came a day after Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin ordered Gazprom to cut volumes of gas pumped through Ukraine in retaliation for the alleged theft of gas by Ukraine.

Ukraine denies stealing gas and blames Moscow for the crisis, which began on January 1 when Gazprom cut deliveries to Ukraine's domestic market saying that Kiev owed billions of dollars in unpaid bills and late fees.

- AFP