Kyiv reaches deal with Moscow on gas price but needs help to pay
KYIV/ DONETSK (Ukraine)
Ukraine’s and Russia’s leaders have reached a preliminary agreement on a price for gas supplies this winter but Kyiv may need international help to pay, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said late on Saturday.
Poroshenko met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Milan on Friday to discuss the conflict in Ukraine’s eastern regions, where pro-Russian separatists are fighting Kyiv government forces.
Russia cut off gas supply to Ukraine in mid-June following more than two years of dispute on the price. Russia said Ukraine had to pay off large debts for previously-supplied gas before it would resume supply.
“(We) reached an agreement,” Poroshenko said in an interview with Ukrainian TV channels. “Until March 31 we will fix the price at $385.”
An agreement signed in 2009 by former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko called on Ukraine to pay $485 per 1,000 cubic metres for Russian gas. Kyiv is contesting the contract in a Stockholm arbitration court.
Poroshenko said that state-run energy company Naftogaz was short of funds to pay for Russian gas partly because of debts created by consumers in eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions, controlled by pro-Russian separatists.
“We must solve the question of how we cover the deficit of funds for Naftogaz for gas purchases,” Poroshenko said. “We have several different options (including) the International Monetary Fund (IMF).”
He said a mission of the IMF is due to arrive in Kyiv in mid-November to discuss amendments to the current loan programme for Ukraine. Poroshenko said the next round of gas talks was likely to take place on October 21 in Brussels.
Poroshenko told the nation late on Saturday that he had made sure in Milan that their homes would stay warm through the bitter winter season – a crucial promise to make ahead of next Sunday’s crunch general election.
“Ukraine will have gas. Ukraine will have heat,” Poroshenko said in a pre-recorded television interview.
The chief spokesman for Russia’s state-held gas giant Gazprom confirmed that the two sides had found an interim price solution. But he added that Ukraine still disputed the amount of money it owed Moscow for unpaid deliveries and that no formal agreement had yet been reached.
A new deal’s signing “depends on other factors – including the payment of debts,” spokesman Sergei Kuprianov said. “These will be discussed in Brussels on Tuesday.”
Meanwhile, four civilians were killed and nine wounded by shrapnel during fighting on Saturday and Sunday in eastern Ukraine’s separatist stronghold city of Donetsk, local officials said.
Speaking at a daily security briefing in Kyiv on Sunday, military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said 13 Ukrainian servicemen had been wounded in the past 24 hours in fighting in the east. There was no immediate word on casualties among rebel fighters.
The sounds of mortar fire and rocket launchers thundered through central Donetsk throughout Saturday night as fighting went on several kilometres away.