The two top gas executives from Russia and Ukraine held talks in Moscow today, in the first face-to-face contact since their row choked off supplies to EU countries in bitter winter weather.
There was no immediate word on the outcome of the talks, but further urgent diplomacy was planned in Brussels where delegations from Kiev and Moscow were to meet officials from a European Union increasingly concerned at the gas cut-offs.
"We need to resume the gas flows in Europe. We can't be blackmailed," Czech deputy prime minister Alexandr Vondra, whose country holds the EU presidency, said in Prague.
Russia's state-controlled gas export monopoly Gazprom fully suspended supplies of transit gas towards Ukraine yesterday, saying there was no longer any point delivering the gas because Kiev had shut down the pipelines.
Ukraine, whose pro-Western leaders have clashed with the Kremlin over their drive to join NATO, said Russia was deliberately starving Europe of gas. Russia cut off gas for Ukraine's domestic consumption on New Year's Day.
The row over gas prices and debts owed by Ukraine to Russia hit supplies as far west as France and Germany as Europe faced freezing mid-winter temperatures.
In Bulgaria, one of the worst affected countries, at least 45,000 households were without central heating on Wednesday. Schools were shut and some companies were closed. Temperatures in Sofia fell to minus -14 degrees overnight.
Gazprom Chief Executive Alexei Miller and Oleh Dubyna, head of Ukrainian state energy firm Naftogaz, met overnight in Moscow, a Gazprom official said.
The official declined to give any details.
Miller and Dubyna were expected to meet again in Brussels today when they hold talks with European Energy Commission Andris Piebalgs and Czech Trade and Industry Minister Martin Riman, representing the Czech EU presidency. Gazprom said Miller
would meet European Commission President Jose Manual Barroso.
Against a backdrop of mounting pressure from European countries on both Kiev and Moscow to get gas flowing again, Russian president Dmitry Medvedev spoke by telephone late on Wednesday with Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko.
Medvedev told his Ukrainian counterpart gas supplies had become hostage to squabbling in the Kiev leadership and that Moscow would only resume pumping gas for Ukraine's own use if Kiev agreed to pay a market price for the fuel.
Reuters