Russian President Dmitry Medvedev urged Ukraine to exercise "common sense" and strike a deal with Russia on gas imports to smooth gas supplies to European customers ahead of a New Year's Eve deadline for gas cuts, according to dpa. "We can make only one recommendation to our Ukrainian partners: make a reasonable decision as fast as possible," Medvedev said. Medvedev made the comments in a televised New Year address with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as Ukrainian officials sat in Moscow in last-ditch negotiations to avoid gas cuts that could jeopardized supplies to European clients further downstream. Russian gas giant Gazprom has said it will cut gas supplies to Kiev starting at 10 am (0700 GMT) on January 1 if a 2 billion dollar debt is not paid by midnight. That Kiev could not broker a deal with Moscow on future gas deliveries, Medvedev said, proved it was an unreliable partner for Europe. "That the interest of European consumers is sacrificed for political conditions, of course, will not paint Ukraine as a state which aspires to build high-level relations with the European states, and the European Union," Medvedev said. The announcement came even as it seemed last-minute talks were breaking down with officials from Ukraine's state-owned gas firm Naftogaz. News agency Interfax quoted a Naftogaz source in the negotiations as saying Ukranian President Viktor Yushchenko had ordered its negotiator Oleg Dubina to "interrupt talks and return to Kiev." Europe receives roughly one-quarter of its natural gas from Russia, over 80 per cent of those supplies are exported via Ukrainian pipelines.
