Russian president Dmitry Medvedev challenged European Union leaders at a summit today to help find money for Ukraine to prevent new gas supply disruptions.
The EU and Russia say they want to build ties after a year dominated by rows. But their summit was overshadowed by bickering on energy supplies, trade and Moscow's worries about an EU drive to build ties with former Soviet states.
Mr Medvedev said Moscow doubted Ukraine's ability to pay for supplies of Russian gas, opening up the spectre of a repeat of January's dispute, which left EU consumers cut off in midwinter from the gas that routinely flows to them through Ukraine.
"We have doubts about Ukraine's ability to pay," Medvedev said at a news conference with EU leaders in the city of Khabarovsk, a city 8,000 km (5,000 miles) east of Brussels.
"Let us help syndicate the corresponding money for the Ukrainian state. But this should not be only Russia doing this. At the end of the day, it is not us who have problems with paying," Mr Medvedev said.
"We are ready to help the Ukrainian state but we would like a significant part of that work to be perhaps taken on by the European Union," said Mr Medvedev.
European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso said that confidence could be restored but said there should be no more disruptions to gas supplies from Russia, which provides more than a quarter of the 27-member bloc's needs.
"Disruption in the export and transport of gas must not be allowed to occur again," Barroso told reporters. "We ask Russia and Ukraine to do everything in their power to prevent another crisis next year."
When asked by a reporter to give assurances there would be no repeat of the Ukraine gas crisis, Mr Medvedev said: "Russia has given no assurances and will give none. What for?"
The winter dispute with Ukraine raised concerns about Europe's reliance on Russia's Gazprom, the world's biggest gas producer and state-controlled export monopoly, for its supplies.
Some EU members had hoped for a new start to relations after Vladimir Putin stepped down as Russian president last year, but a growing list of grievances remain.
European external relations Commissioner Benita Ferraro-Waldner accepted that relations had been damaged by last year's war in Georgia and the Ukrainian gas dispute.
"There was indeed a rough patch in our relations," she told Reuters, adding that Russia and the EU were now on better terms, a view echoed by Russian officials.
"The mood in the room was not bad," one European official said of the talks, which included Czech President Vaclav Klaus.
EU leaders, however, struggled to convince Mr Medvedev that a new Eastern Partnership was not intended to turn Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan against Russia.
"What we don't want is the Eastern partnership to be turned into a partnership that is against Russia," Mr Medvedev said.
Reuters