Ukrainian News Agency reported that Russia's Gazprom natural gas monopoly said that Ukraine's national joint stock company Naftohaz Ukrainy is blocking the activity of RosUkrEnergo, which is a monopoly supplier of natural gas to Ukraine.

M Mr Sergey Kupriyanov official spokesman of OAO Gazprom in Russia's Echo of Moscow radio interview said that "Naftohaz is blocking the activity of RosUkrEnergo while not allowing them to take up from underground storages the gas that must be used for export operations. Neither the old, nor the new patterns are effective. The Ukrainian party is preventing.”

On top Kupriyanov said Gazprom was ready to continue the negotiations with Ukraine on conclusion of a gas supply contract, but there was no reply from Naftohaz Ukrainy by the time.

Gazprom fully stopped the supply of natural gas to Ukraine on January 1st 2009. On December 31st 2008, Gazprom said a new round of talks with Naftohaz Ukrainy on gas supplies in 2009 was a failure.

Ukraine proposes that Russia increase the price of its natural gas for this country by USD 21.5 to USD 201 per 1,000 cubic meters, and the transit rate by USD 0.3 to USD 2 per 1,000 cubic meters pumped over 100 kilometers. Gazprom proposed that Naftohaz Ukrainy buy its natural gas at USD 250 per 1,000 cubic meters from 2009.

50% of RosUkrEnergo belongs to Gazprom, 45% to Ukrainian businessman Mr Dmytro Firtash and 5% to another Ukrainian Mr Ivan Fursin.