Putin Slams Ukraine Over Georgia Arms Sales Amid Gas Talks

MOSCOW, Russia -- Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin lashed out at Ukraine on Thursday for delivering weapons to Georgia, overshadowing talks with his Ukrainian counterpart over a sensitive gas deal.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin (R) speaks with his Ukrainian counterpart Yulia Timoshenko during their meeting in the residence of Novo-Ogaryovo, outside Moscow. Putin and Tymoshenko on Thursday reached a draft agreement in a bid to settle the delicate issue of gas prices, the Kremlin said.
"It is very regrettable that Ukraine thought it possible to deliver arms into the conflict zone," Putin said during a press conference with Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

"States normally behave with greater restraint," he added in an admonition to Ukraine, which relies heavily on Russian gas but which angered Moscow by backing Georgia in its brief war with Russia in August.

Tymoshenko replied "we want a peaceful solution" to the conflict and said it would be possible to reach a deal whereby Ukraine would pay market prices for gas -- meaning a major increase on what it pays now.

"We have the possibility of making a strategic agreement on market prices for gas, on the transition to market prices," she said.

Tymoshenko said on Friday that she expected Ukraine to sign a deal with Russia by the end of October on the delivery of gas from 2009 for a period of up to four years.

Soaring prices could complicate talks, however, after Russian gas monopoly Gazprom on Wednesday announced prices for European clients had hit an all-time high of 500 dollars per 1,000 cubic metres.

Ukraine currently pays 179.5 dollars per 1,000 cubic metres and Russia has long been pushing Kiev to pay more, resulting in a series of price disputes intertwined with the two countries' rocky ties.

In 2006 one such dispute led Moscow cut off gas deliveries to Ukraine and, by extension, to Western Europe, which gets much of its gas from Russia and Central Asia via pipelines running through Ukraine.

The latest downturn in relations between Moscow and Kiev resulted from the August war in which Ukraine strongly supported Georgia.

Ukraine was a major exporter of arms to Georgia in the run-up to the war, which began when Russia poured troops and armour into its southern neighbour to repel a Georgian attack on the Moscow-backed rebel region of South Ossetia.

Earlier Thursday, the pro-Kremlin daily Izvestia accused Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko -- Tymoshenko's arch-rival -- of selling Georgia air-defence systems and rocket launchers used in the attack on South Ossetia.

On Wednesday, Tymoshenko denounced arms trafficking in Ukraine and blamed Yushchenko and his allies for not stopping it, Interfax news agency reported.

Tymoshenko and Yushchenko have been feuding bitterly in a political crisis that began when the president pulled his party out of their ruling pro-West coalition after a dispute over how to respond to the war in Georgia.

Yushchenko's office accused the prime minister of "treason" for not being tough enough on Russia.

The squabbling threatened Thursday's meeting with Putin when Yushchenko's plane made an emergency landing near Kiev, and Tymoshenko's team accused him of seizing her plane as she was about to leave for Moscow.

"The government delegation was deprived of its plane in a bid to thwart the negotiations" with Putin, a Tymoshenko spokesman was quoted as saying by Interfax. The prime minister arrived in Moscow aboard a chartered plane.

The two politicians have had a love-hate relationship since 2004, when they joined forces in the so-called Orange Revolution to overturn the rigged election of a pro-Russian candidate as president.

Source: AFP