Yuri Prodan News

Moscow , Kiev and Brussels will restart Talks on Russian Gas Supplies on Monday to TRY to resolve a Dispute over price, a Russian Energy Ministry Official Said on Sunday. "The next (Round) of Trilateral Negotiations Tomorrow Evening will Take place in Brussels , "a spokeswoman for the Energy Ministry Said. Russia 's Energy minister Alexander Novak, his Ukrainian counterpart Yuri Prodan and the European Union 's Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger will Take Part in the Talks. Russia 's Gazprom and Ukraine State Energy Company Naftogaz met for Two days in Berlin Last week to TRY to Settle Dispute which could threaten the Gas flows to Europe . Ukraine and Russia Differ on How much Naftogaz has to Pay for the Gas.

Europe's Energy Commissioner said on Monday Ukraine and Russia had made further progress in a dispute over gas prices and his proposal that Ukraine to pay $2 billion of back debt by Thursday could pave the way for further talks on Friday. Speaking after three-way talks with Russia's and Ukraine's energy ministers, Guenther Oettinger said the two governments would study his proposal that Ukraine pay Russia $2 billion by Thursday and a further $500 million by June 7. Oettinger, acting as a mediator in the capital of his home country Germany, said if the governments agreed to the deal, further talks about the gas price from April could then be held from Friday. "We've achieved progress but we didn't achieve a breakthrough," Oettinger told reporters at a news conference in Berlin.

Pro-Russian militants raised their flags over official buildings in two eastern Ukrainian cities on Saturday, deepening a stand-off with Moscow which, Kiev warned, was dragging Europe closer to a "gas war" that could disrupt supplies across the continent. At least 20 men armed with pistols and rifles took over the police station and a security services headquarters in Slaviansk, about 150 km (90 miles) from the border with Russia. Officials said the men had seized hundreds of pistols from arsenals in the buildings. The militants replaced the Ukrainian flag on one of the buildings with the red, white and blue Russian flag. Some local residents helped the militants build barricades out of tyres in anticipation that police would try to force them out, a Reuters photographer at the scene said.

Ukraine is in emergency talks with European neighbours on the possibility of importing natural gas from the West, following "political" rises in the price it pays for Russian gas, Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk said on Friday. The urgency of securing affordable supplies for Ukraine's struggling economy has grown since Moscow raised its discounted gas tariff for Kiev twice this week, almost doubling it in three days. Relations between Ukraine and Russia have turned hostile since popular protests in Kiev ousted pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovich in February, after which Russia seized Ukraine's Crimea region and formally annexed it last month. The dispute has widened into the biggest stand-off between Russia and the West since the end of the Cold War.