(MENAFN- Qatar News Agency) Brussels May 02 - Russia has guaranteed gas deliveries to Ukraine and the EU throughout May the EU's top energy official said Friday after talks with his counterparts from Kiev and Moscow aimed at resolving a row over energy supplies Alliance News reported.
Cash-strapped Ukraine has been unable to settle its gas bills from Russian energy giant Gazprom in recent months. Russia has raised the price of energy and is threatening to demand advance payment for future deliveries.
Ukraine which is at the centre of the worst standoff between Russia and the West since the Cold War is also a transit route for EU member states relying on Russian energy supplies.
"The goodwill of all those present today not to allow the gas sector to escalate and become an instrument of politics but to find solutions was evident" said EU Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger after the talks in Warsaw.
He said he would hold two more meetings this month with Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak and his Ukrainian counterpart Yuri Prodan to resolve immediate and longer-term questions over Russian gas supplies to Ukraine and beyond.
"It is indisputable that the Ukrainian gas company Naftogas did not pay the gas bills for the period of February March and April" said Oettinger. "It is indisputable that gas was delivered to the Ukrainian market in these months."
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