"Talks on a contract for natural gas supplies to Ukraine is a bilateral issue, and Ukraine and Russia should cope with it on their own," Tymoshenko said at a news briefing, appearing to contradict Ukraine's energy minister.
Yuriy Prodan said on Tuesday he had secured the European Union's preliminary consent to mediate in the ongoing gas dispute between the two former Soviet neighbors, which has hit European consumers hard.
Moscow and Kiev failed to come to terms on a price for Russian-supplied gas next year and Ukraine's debt for 2008 shipments, which led to Russian energy giant Gazprom suspending supplies to Ukraine on January 1. Gazprom cut off supplies to Europe a week later saying Ukraine was stealing gas intended for EU members.
Tymoshenko said she had requested a telephone conversation with her Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, to determine a date for a new round of talks.
She said it was unacceptable for the Kremlin to set Ukraine a price of $450 per 1,000 cubic meters while the tariff for gas transit remained unchanged. "Those conditions set by Russia... are unacceptable," Tymoshenko said, adding that "Ukraine will resume the negotiations in a constructive way."
Gazprom earlier said it had increased the price to the average European level after Kiev had rejected a subsidized price of $250, insisting on $210 per 1,000 cubic meters. In 2008, Ukraine paid $179 per 1,000 cubic meters.
Commenting on media reports, the prime minister said the country's vast network of pipelines bringing gas to the EU would not be privatized. "The network will remain 100% state-owned," she said.
A popular Russian daily said on Wednesday that under a cooperation agreement Kiev and Washington signed in December, the United States would modernize Ukraine's crumbling pipelines and could receive control of the network, which transits around 80% of Russia's Europe-bound gas.
Ukrainian Communist Party leader Petro Symonenko said on Tuesday the network was 75% owned by Dmytro Firtash, co-owner of the RosUkrEnergy gas trader. The country's anti-monopoly body was reported to have launched an inquiry into the network's ownership structure.
Tymoshenko said Ukrainian politicians seeking to keep the Swiss trader involved in Russian gas supplies to Ukraine were partly to blame for the failure of gas talks.
"The talks broke down because Ukrainian politicians were making an attempt to preserve RosUkrEnergo as an intermediary," she said.
Earlier on Wednesday, the premier blamed Russia for the failure to restore shipments to Europe, saying Moscow had supplied inadequate volumes of transit gas and demanded Kiev use the wrong pipelines.
What will be the result of the current Russian-Ukrainian ‘gas war'? (Poll)
