Yulia Tymoshenko has said she will counter any attempts to create a gas transportation consortium. Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has said she will counter any attempts to create a gas transportation consortium.

"I want to warn [Ukrainian President Viktor] Yanukovych ... I will not allow him to create a gas transportation consortium. Ukraine's gas transportation system will always remain only in state ownership, and it will continue to strengthen Ukraine," she said at a press conference in Kyiv on Thursday.

Tymoshenko noted that 27 billion cubic meters of gas had been pumped into Ukraine's gas storage facilities.

"And if he [Yanukovych] takes the liberty of taking away 11 billion cubic meters of gas that allegedly belongs to RosUkrEnergo and that was returned to the state... we will fight so that he is held responsible for taking strategic reserves away from the state," she said.

Tymoshenko promised to ensure that the Black Sea shelf and Sakhalin oil and gas fields in Kharkiv region also remain in public ownership.