President's statement on the situation with gas supplies to Europe

Speaking at a press conference president Viktor Yushchenko announced a statement dedicated to the situation with gas supplies to Europe, president's press office reported.

"I think it is my duty to inform you on the situation with supplies of Russian gas to European Union countries, European countries and to Ukraine and on the problems in the process.

To open the press conference, let me state for another time, on behalf of the sovereign state that Ukraine was, is and will be reliable transit partner and that it had not done anything to stop supplies of Russian gas to countries of Europe and the European Union.

I would like the following official position conveyed to citizens of the European Union, heads of states, leaders of governments: Ukraine did not make a single step to halt supplies of Russian gas to Europe. This is a principal position for us because now there is a lot of gossip, biased information and lies. It is clear that their purpose is to discredit parties that accurately and suitably carry out their duties.

Another position I would like to put emphasis on: after January 1, 2009 Ukraine never took any gas illegally. Not a single cubic meter of Russian gas was taken illegally, beyond regulations from the system since the beginning of 2009, same as in 2008, though. But now we are talking of the events that happened after January 1.

The third. Ukraine is not a debtor in payments for Russian gas that was consumed in 2008. I emphasize that: all the final payments for the gas consumed in November and prepayments for gas to be consumed in December were done by Ukraine at the end of December 2008.

The fourth. When circumstances appeared that Ukraine became a witness to Russia stopping supplies of gas to European Union countries, we initiated bringing up of the question before the European Commission about inviting it as the third party in order to guarantee effective monitoring of supplies of Russian gas and its transit through the territory of Ukraine. We were sure, presence of representatives from the European Commission would finally put an end to discussions about gas transit, conditions of the transit, reliability of the transit and reliability of the system. We have been and do remain a constructive party in the talks with Russia on signature of an agreement on supplies of Russian gas to Ukraine and of a contract on transit of Russian gas to European countries in 2009."