Energy will top the agenda of a Moscow meeting between Ukraine's prime minister and his Russian counterpart Friday, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Embassy in Russia said, RIA Novosti reported.
Premier Viktor Yanukovych's meeting with Mikhail Fradkov will be part of his first official visit to Russia since he took office in August.
"It will probably be the last meeting before a session of an intergovernmental commission on economic cooperation, which is overseeing preparations for an inter-state Yushchenko-Putin commission," Yanukovych told journalists earlier this week.
The Ukrainian premier is also expected to meet with Alexei Miller, chief executive of Russian energy giant Gazprom, the spokesman said
During a price spat with Ukraine in January, Russia briefly cut off gas supplies to its neighbor, and later Gazprom accused Ukraine of siphoning off Europe-bound gas during the halt in supplies. The situation aroused concerns in Europe about Russia's reliability as a gas supplier.
But Yanukovych said in Brussels prior to his Moscow visit that Ukraine had enough underground storage facilities to ensure that Russian gas supplies reached Europe in full.
"Gas storage facilities with a capacity of 24.7 billion cubic meters guarantee [Russian] supplies to Europe," he said.
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