Putin urges EU to lend Ukraine at least $1 billion

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin urged the European Union on 2 November to lend Ukraine at least $1 billion to help it pay for natural gas supplies from Russia and avoid another disruption of flows to Europe. Putin said Russia had done its part by paying transit fees of $2.5 billion in advance. “Let the Europeans throw in a lousy billion,” he said in televised remarks after talks with Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen. “Why have they gotten so stingy down there? Let them get something out of their pockets,” he was quoted by the press as saying. “They have money, too.”
On 1 November, Putin called Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, to express his concerns. “Prime Minister Reinfeldt stated that both the Swedish and the Czech presidency had followed this issue closely and that we will continue to do so,” the Swedish government said in a statement. The EU brokered a $1.7 billion loan deal for Ukraine from various international institutions but all the cash, bar $300 million, was earmarked for the modernization of gas sector infrastructure and was highly conditional.
In January 2009, a week-long row between Kiev and Moscow over alleged non-payment of supplies to the Ukraine led to dramatic shortages of gas in Eastern and Western Europe, with Russia shutting off deliveries. The state-controlled Russian gas concern Gazprom and Ukrainian firm Naftogaz have recently announced an agreement that all payment issues have been resolved.
However Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko in a conversation with Putin two weeks ago said President Viktor Yushchenko would not provide any more funds for gas payments. The financially weak Ukraine has been in a months-long political crisis due to a power struggle between Yushchenko and Timoshenko. Presidential elections are planned for January 17, 2010. The election campaign has just begun.