Ukraine president gives PM five days to resolve Russian gas dispute

UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT Viktor Yushchenko has given prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko five days to resolve their country’s gas dispute with Russia, as their personal battle threatened to hamper efforts to avert a potential energy crisis.

Mr Yushchenko blamed Ms Tymoshenko’s government for Kiev’s alleged failure to pay $2.4 billion in fuel bills to Russia, amid growing fears of a repeat of a January 2006 energy dispute which prompted Moscow to cut fuel supplies to Ukraine, causing a sharp drop in gas flow to EU countries further west.

The latest row with Russia comes at a time of political and financial turmoil in Ukraine, where the president and prime minister are at loggerheads, parliament is barely functioning, a snap general election is expected early next year, and economic woes have forced Kiev to seek a $16 billion international bailout.

“It is your personal responsibility that a state monopoly over which the government exercises direct control has arrears of more than $2 billion,” Mr Yushchenko said yesterday.

“A few days ago you said everything was settled with gas. You must therefore prove in five days that you have resolved everything, starting with bills for gas supplied. Do not drag the people and the nation into this.”

While Ms Tymoshenko has sought recently to improve ties with Russia, Mr Yushchenko has lambasted Moscow for its military intervention in Georgia, and accused it of destabilising the largely ethnic Russian Crimea region. He has warned that running up huge gas debts to the Kremlin would undermine his country’s sovereignty and said yesterday that it would lead to “the colonisation of Ukraine”.

Ukraine’s state gas company says it has no debt to Russia, but owes about $1.26 billion to a shadowy firm called RosUkrEnergo, which is an intermediary in gas trade between the countries.

After months of squabbling paralysed Ukraine’s parliament, Ms Tymoshenko offered to step down if it would help to create a an effective new coalition government.

She told regional governors that she was “ready to change the make-up of this government if that is needed for the sake of unifying everyone in this parliament”.