President Victor Yushchenko has said yesterday’s threat by Russian gas monopoly Gazprom to cut gas supplies to Ukraine is “unconstructive”, according to the President`s press-office.
“I do not think this is an appropriate statement and that its form and the time when it was made correspond to the constructive nature of our relations,” he said in Berlin on Wednesday.
Yushchenko said Ukraine and Naftogaz owed Gazprom no money and added that he had asked Energy Minister Yuriy Boyko to give him full information on the issue. He said the government had not sent draft directives for gas talks with Russia for his approval yet and that Deputy Prime Minister Andriy Klyuyev had asked him to postpone the consideration of the directives. The president, however, assured reporters these documents would be considered and signed.
Yushchenko had earlier ordered the Yanukovych cabinet to draft such directives by September
