MOSCOW, June 3 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's prime minister warned on Wednesday that natural gas pumped via Ukraine to Europe could be cut off by early July if Ukraine fails to pay for its gas, and urged the EU to intervene.
"During discussions with our European partners, I have called attention to this problem, and asked them not to leave us [Ukraine and Russia] to handle these issues one-on-one. We are warning in advance that if such a conflict arises, it could lead to a full shutdown in our transit in late June or early July," Vladimir Putin said after talks with his Finnish counterpart Matti Vanhanen in Helsinki.
Russia, which supplies around one fifth of Europe's gas, briefly shut down supplies via Ukraine's pipeline system at the start of the year over Kiev's unpaid debt.
The premier said that if there are further payment delays on the part of Ukraine, Russia's Gazprom has the contractual right to demand pre-payment for future gas, suspending supplies until the money is paid. Without buying gas to fill Ukraine's storage system, the resulting shortfall will have a knock-on effect on Europe, he warned.
"I want to stress that without pumping gas into its underground storage facilities, Ukraine won't be able to survive, and will be forced to tap gas from the export pipelines. It will be forced to do this, you can't even blame them for it," he said.
Despite the warnings from both the Russian side and Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko that further gas disputes and cutoffs are highly likely to arise, leading to problems for the European Union, the 27-nation bloc has so far been reluctant to consider financially backing Ukraine's gas imports.
Last Friday, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said it would be difficult for the EU to help Ukraine keep up with its payments.
The Russian premier said: "All our requests to the European Commission have so far been unsuccessful, there has only been one answer - we have no money for Ukraine."
Putin stressed that Russia has not escaped from the global economic slowdown, and is not in a position to subsidize Ukraine.
"We, in Russia at least, are not glad and are not gloating over Ukraine's difficulties in paying for the product they buy from us... But we can't pay for this."
Russia's president has also called for dialogue involving the EU on the Russia-Ukraine gas issue.
Dmitry Medvedev told Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin on Wednesday: "We need to continue contacts with our European partners, Brussels, the EU presidency, and our Ukrainian colleagues."
Sechin told the president that the government has submitted proposals to the EU and to Ukraine on coordinating efforts aimed at solving payment problems.
"We have appealed to Barroso, the president of the European Commission, as well as the president of the Czech Republic, the prime minister of Sweden and Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko on coordinating these efforts," he said.
Sechin also confirmed that Russia will not be able to grant Ukraine's request for a $4.2 bln loan to enable the country to buy 19.5 billion cubic meters of gas for its underground storage facilities.
