Tymoshenko says she has reached agreement with Putin on gas payments
Yulia Tymoshenko

Tymoshenko says she has reached agreement with Putin on gas payments

Sep 1, 2009 at 15:45 | Interfax-Ukraine
Ukraine will pay only for the Russian gas it consumes, Ukrainian Prime Minster Yulia Tymoshenko said after meeting with her Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Sopot on Tuesday.

"Vladimir Vladimirovich [Putin] and I have discussed the issue of Ukraine's consumption of Russian gas, and the position of the Russian prime minister is that Ukraine will pay only for the amount of gas it consumes," Tymoshenko said.

Putin reiterated that the current world crisis should be taken into account in mutual settlements and supplies.

"My colleague and I have agreed that we will give our respective economic entities an instruction to take these circumstances into account," Putin said.

Putin recalled that Russia understands that "the Ukrainian economy now consumes as much energy resources as it needs." "We will operate under this assumption," he said.

The details will be discussed by the economic entities, Putin said.

"We believe it would be wrong to limit ourselves to energy issues. We will prepare a meeting of the economic committee,' he said, recalling that Tymoshenko invited the Russian delegation to visit Kharkiv in October.

"By this time we will prepare and will speak about diversifying our relations in many areas. The level of cooperation between Russian and Ukrainian enterprises is often such that these enterprises cannot work without each other, and that is also true for the aircraft industry," Putin said.