Putin: EU should help finance gas supplies to Ukraine

Nov 3, 2009, 3:00 GMT

 Moscow - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has called on the European Union to help finance the supply of Russian natural gas to Ukraine, which has repeatedly had problems paying its bills.

   After a meeting with Danish Prime Minister Lars Rasmussen on Monday in Moscow, Putin said that the EU should come up with at least a billion dollars, the Itar-Tass news agency reported.

   'Why are they being so stingy? They have money too,' Putin said.

   Russia has already paid Ukraine 2.5 billion dollars, he said.

   The Russian prime minister also warned about new potential bottlenecks in gas supplies for European consumers. He gave the reason as the payment problems afflicting Ukraine, the most important transit country for supplies to the EU, the Interfax news agency reported.

   The former president of Russia has informed Sweden, which currently holds the EU's rotating presidency, of the problems in the former Soviet republic, the report said.

   An energy advisor to the Swedish presidency told the German Press Agency dpa Monday that the warnings would be taken seriously but added that Ukraine still had time to pay its October bill.

   At the start of the year a week-long spat between Kiev and Moscow over an unpaid bill led to cuts in supplies to Eastern and Western Europe when Russia turned off the tap.

   Ukraine has until November 7 to pay around 500 million dollars, the newspaper Vremja Novostej reported.

   In the last few months the Ukrainian company Naftogas has often transferred the money to the state-controlled Russian gas giant Gazprom at the last moment.