News.Kyiv.Me.

A tentative agreement between the Ukrainian and Russian presidents has raised hopes of ending a
dispute in which Moscow has halted natural-gas supplies to Kyiv, but several obstacles still have
to be overcome.

Movement on the gas row was the only sign of progress in talks between Vladimir Putin and Petro
Poroshenko on Friday, which failed to resolve differences over fighting in eastern Ukraine and a
deep crisis in relations.

The two sides, whose energy ministers will meet in Brussels on Tuesday, still differ over how to
calculate Kyiv’s huge gas debt and the schedule for payments. There are doubts about Ukraine’s
ability to pay.

“The devil is in the details. I don’t think that Russian gas will be delivered soon to Ukraine,”
a Russian government source close to gas talks told Reuters.

Meanwhile, Poland’s parliamentary speaker, Radoslaw Sikorski, has been quoted as saying that
Putin proposed to Poland’s leader in 2008 that they divide Ukraine between themselves.

Sikorski, who until September served as Poland’s foreign minister, was quoted by the U.S.
website Politico as saying that Putin made the proposal during Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s
visit to Moscow in 2008 — although Sikorski later said some of the interview had been “
overinterpreted.”

“He wanted us to become participants in this partition of Ukraine … This was one of the first
things that Putin said to my prime minister, Donald Tusk, when he visited Moscow,” he was quoted as
saying in the interview dated on Sunday.

“He (Putin) went on to say Ukraine is an artificial country and that Lwow is a Polish city and
why don’t we just sort it out together,” Sikorski was quoted as saying.

“We made it very, very clear to them — we wanted nothing to do with this.”

After publication of the interview, Sikorski said it was not entirely accurate.

Ewa Kopacz, Tusk’s successor, said today that if such a proposal was made by Putin, “then that’s
scandalous.”