Putin confirms Bulgarian, Slovakian PMs to visit Wednesday

(MOSCOW) - The premiers of Bulgaria and Slovakia will visit Moscow on Wednesday for gas crisis talks, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said as Russian gas supplies remained halted for a seventh day.

"I just talked to the prime minister of Bulgaria and the prime minister of Slovakia and we agreed that we'll meet in Moscow tomorrow. They said they were ready to come and see what the situation is here," Putin told reporters.

Putin's press office said he told Bulgaria's Sergey Stanishev and Slovakia's Robert Fico that Ukraine was blocking transit of Russian gas supplies that had resumed earlier Tuesday after a dispute with Kiev.

Bulgaria's government information service confirmed Stanishev was travelling to Moscow and said Economy and Energy Minister Petar Dimitrov and the head of Bulgaria's Energy Holding Galina Tosheva will also be going to Moscow.

The Slovakian government could not immediately confirm Fico's trip to Moscow but said he would travel to Kiev on Wednesday morning to meet Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

The Slovakian delegation will include Foreign Minister Jan Kubis and Economy Minister Lubomir Jahnatek and "the negotiations will concern the current energy crisis," according to a statement published in Bratislava.