Gazprom said on Monday that it had postponed until Tuesday evening its deadline for Ukraine to pay its $1.5 billion natural gas debt, after which the Russian energy giant threatened to begin to reduce supplies.
"We have worked out a general short-term roadmap. We heard our partners say today that the debt will soon be paid off, and we agreed on the principles for cooperation in 2008 and consecutive years," Putin told a news conference.
Yushchenko said that he expected that 2007 prices would be used to calculate his country's gas debt, referring to $179 per 1,000 cubic meters. "We should pay it off," he said, adding that the first installment would be paid on Thursday.
Yushchenko also said Ukraine's national oil and gas company, Naftogaz, and Russia's Gazprom had agreed to set up a working group to make bilateral relations in the gas sphere more transparent.
"We have agreed for Gazprom and Naftogaz to set up a working group that should soon develop schemes for establishing more direct, transparent relations on the [gas] market," the Ukrainian leader said.
