Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Yulia Tymoshenko held talks on Tuesday amid a new diplomatic row over a Russian Black Sea Fleet lighthouse.
During the meeting, the two leaders agreed that Ukraine will only pay for gas it actually consumes, rather than what it has ordered from Russia.
They also discussed the possibility to restore their joint aircraft projects that both sides have suspended funding.
Gas problems almost overcome
The meeting occurred on Tuesday afternoon in the northern Polish city of Sopot, on the sidelines of activities marking the 70th anniversary of the start of the European wars in World War II.
After talks with Putin, Tymoshenko told reporters that Kiev and Moscow have almost overcome their differences over natural gas supplies, and Kiev will only pay for gas it actually consumes, rather than what it has ordered as stipulated in the gas contracts.
"In my view, we can already say that we have removed all of the gas problems," said the Ukrainian premier, as quoted by Russia's RIA Novosti news agency.
"It is very important that our next meeting will take place in October, as we have planned," she said as cited by the Itar-Tass news agency.
Tymoshenko and Putin are probably to meet at a meeting of the Russian-Ukrainian Intergovernmental Commission's Economic Cooperation Committee, which may take place in the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkov in October.
In response, Putin said: "We believe that current conditions of the world financial crisis, which affect national economies, must be taken into account in gas deliveries and settlements."
"We will order economic entities to bear the situation in mind, " he said.
Tymoshenko said earlier that "Ukraine would get over energy dependence on Russia within 3-5 years," as her country plans to buy only 25 billion cubic meters of natural gas from Russia in 2010, instead of 33 billion cubic meters in 2009 and 52 billion cubic meters in 2008.
The Itar-Tass said Ukraine may try to revise the gas contracts signed with Russian energy giant Gazprom earlier this year with both Tymoshenko and Putin attending.
Russia cut off gas shipments to Ukraine in January over disputes on pricing and transition fees, leaving more than a dozen European nations without heating gas in the depths of winter for nearly two weeks.
Russia supplies a quarter of the EU's gas needs, with 80 percent of it pumped through Ukrainian pipelines.
An-70 project may resume
Ukraine and Russia made a joint research agreement on the An-70 military transport plane from 1993-1999.
The developmental aircraft is capable of carrying 35 tons of freight and has a flight range of 5,000 km. The market demand has been estimated at over 1,000 planes.
However, Russia suspended the funding in 2007, as its defense ministry insisted further modernization and full-scale test flights, while Ukraine determined to initiate mass production of the aircraft.
One year later, Ukraine also stopped investments due to financial problems.
After Tuesday's negotiations Putin said Russia may resume the joint project.
"Russia has slightly adjusted its attitude to the An-70 project. We have things to discuss ... The main thing to be done is the unification of efforts of Russian and Ukrainian companies," he said.
Tymoshenko also believed that the "joint aircraft projects have the right to exist," and the An-70 project may be discussed in her October meeting with Putin.
The Itar-Tass said more than 1.1 billion U.S. dollars have been injected into the project, yet it needed another 132 million dollars as of early last year.
New diplomatic spat
Although Putin and Tymoshenko agreed on several cooperative projects, recently Russia and Ukraine have been locked in another diplomatic stalemate, after a failed Ukrainian attempt to seize navigation equipment at a Russian Black Sea Fleet lighthouse.
Two Ukrainian court bailiffs on Aug. 26 entered the Black Sea Fleet's base in the Ukrainian port city of Sevastopol, demanding Russian servicemen there hand over navigation equipment at the Khersones lighthouse.
The Black Sea Fleet, which has long been deployed on Ukraine's Crimea Peninsula, prevented the two bailiffs from seizing the property and handed them over to Ukrainian police instead.
It remains to be seen how Russian and Ukrainian authorities will react to the latest dispute, though it is widely believed that a new round of diplomatic sparring is looming amidst already heightened tensions between the two former Soviet neighbors.
The bilateral relations have been gradually deteriorating under pro-western Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko. They sank to a new low earlier this month after Medvedev accused Yushchenko of taking anti-Russian positions and delayed sending a new ambassador to Ukraine.
(Xinhua News Agency September 2, 2009)
