Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has denied one more time again statements that Russia might imposes penal sanctions against Ukraine for importing less natural gas than provided by the gas contracts between Naftohaz Ukrainy national oil and gas company and Russia's Gazprom gas monopoly.
Yulia Tymoshenko said this at a news briefing in Severodonetsk in Luhansk region.
"There is positive agreement with Russian Prime Minister [Vladimir Putin] that we will sign an act concerning natural gas supplies to Ukraine in 2009 and that the act will fix the volumes of natural gas we received in reality and there would be absolutely no penal sanctions. This was a positive agreement with the Russian prime minister – he has not let me down when we arrived at agreement, and I try to keep my word," Yulia Tymoshenko said.
She said the speculations on the matter represent a desire of certain structure to return to the corruptive schemes in the natural gas supplies. Tymoshenko said there would be no return to such schemes.
"I absolutely acknowledge that all corruption machines in the system of natural gas supplies to Ukraine are in a rage today and they want to defame all we have done in the matter," the Ukrainian prime minister said.
Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko noted that the Ukrainian government did not raise the natural gas rates for the households in 2008 and 2009.
As Ukrainian News earlier reported, President Viktor Yuschenko is afraid that Russia’s Gazprom gas monopoly can claim fines against the Naftohaz Ukrainy national oil and gas company worth USD 8.7 billion for Ukraine’s importing less natural gas than provided by their contracts in 2009.
Speaking at a meeting with the ambassadors of G-8 countries in Kyiv on November 11, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko said Ukraine and the International Monetary Fund would return to the question of the higher natural gas rates for the population after the end of the political crisis in the country.
