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Putin says Europe gas crisis "worsening"
AFP - 25 minutes ago
MOSCOW (AFP) - - The gas crisis that has hit Europe is getting worse despite intensive efforts to resolve it quickly, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Saturday.
"Despite all the efforts that have been made, the crisis is worsening," Putin said as he began talks with Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek, whose country represents the European Union.
Topolanek, current holder of the European Union presidency, has stepped in to try to broker a deal over the crisis that has left tens of thousands of Europeans without heating.
The Czech prime minister said during the meeting in Moscow that he would not leave the region until Russian gas again began to flow through Ukraine to customers in Europe.
"I have sent a signal to Ukrainian leaders that I will stay in the region until we get the gas flowing," Topolanek said.
Russia cut off gas for Ukraine's domestic market on New Year's Day in a gas payments dispute and followed a week later by cutting off all gas transiting Ukraine for Europe because it said Ukraine was stealing the gas.
Kiev has denied this and accuses Moscow of engineering a gas crisis.
Ahead of the meeting, the EU presidency was hopeful on a deal after talks on Friday with Ukraine's leaders -- who share an uneasy relationship -- in Kiev over the crisis.
"Trust in an agreement got a boost on Friday as Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko acted in perfect consent," EU presidency spokesman Jiri Frantisek Potuznik told reporters earlier in Moscow.
Potuznik said Putin had promised to allow Ukrainian experts to monitor gas flows pumped from Russia to Europe through Ukraine, adding: "If we manage to strike a deal on that, we will have a framework for a political deal."
Russia has already said it will allow Ukrainian monitors, while Russian energy giant Gazprom said Ukraine had so far not signed a deal to allow Russian monitors into Ukraine, accusing Yushchenko of holding up the deal.
"The protocol for the creation of a multilateral commission to monitor the transit of gas through Ukrainian territory has still not been signed," Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov said on Russian state television.
"The Ukrainian president's decision, or lack of decision, is once again hampering our gas supplies," he said.
Much of Europe is in the grip of a cold snap that has sent temperatures far below freezing and numerous countries are heavily or completely dependent on Russian gas.
The European Union depends on Russian gas pumped via Ukraine for around 20 percent of its total gas consumption. Despite attempts to diversify supplies, Europe still depends on Russia for more than 40 percent of its gas imports.
Deploying observers to monitor Russian gas transit through Ukraine has emerged as the key to a deal to resume supplies because it would be clear if Russia was pumping gas for Europe and if Ukraine was siphoning it off.
Russia has said it will resume pumping gas through Ukraine to Europe once a deal has been signed and the observers are in place. The EU has said it would still take three days for the gas to reach Europe once pumping re-starts.
Kiev has been reluctant to let Russians monitor work on Ukrainian territory, but Topolanek said the matter was resolved during Friday's talks.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko told reporters Kiev was prepared to sign the deal and would do so "as soon as possible."
Meanwhile in eastern Europe , the area most dependent on Russian gas and currently experiencing bitterly cold temperatures, scores of schools have been shut down and thousands of households left without heating and hot water.
In the snow-blanketed Bosnian capital Sarajevo, about 72,000 households remained without heating due to the halt in Russian supplies.
In Bulgaria the government began rationing gas supplies to industries and temperatures in buildings plummeted.
Even after the dispute over the transit across Ukraine is resolved, Kiev and Moscow still have to solve their standoff over the gas Gazprom supplies to the domestic Ukrainian market.
Thousands of homes were left without hot water in southern Ukraine on Friday because of the gas crisis, as companies across the country were forced to reduce operations and schools were closed.
Gazprom said Friday there had been "no progress" in the negotiations with Ukraine and that Ukraine would have to pay around 470 dollars per thousand cubic metres of gas in the first quarter of 2009.
Ukraine paid 179.5 dollars in 2008, far less than what EU states pay.
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A man fishes on the frozen Moskva river in central Moscow. The gas crisis that has hit Europe is getting worse despite intensive efforts to resolve it quickly, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Saturday.
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