Russia will not cut gas supplies to Ukraine next year: Gazprom

(MOSCOW) - Russia will not reduce its gas exports to Ukraine next year or change its contract conditions, gas giant Gazprom's chief executive said Wednesday.

"Ukraine should be fulfilling its contract obligations. What is in the contract will be," Interfax news agency quoted Alexei Miller as saying in Buenos Aires.

Last month, President Dmitry Medvedev accused Ukraine of seeking changes to a contract for the transit of Russian gas across its territory, referring to the January deal signed by Russia and Ukraine after their New Year dispute left several European countries without gas for two weeks.

Ukraine's presidential envoy on energy issues, Bohdan Sokolovsky, told Echo of Moscow radio that the January contract was putting pressure on Ukraine.

Ukraine -- which has long complained that the transit fees Russia pays are too low -- is one of the world's worst hit countries in the global economic crisis.

Relations between Moscow and Kiev dropped to a post-Soviet low under Ukraine's pro-Western President Viktor Yushchenko, who came to power after the so-called Orange Revolution ousted the old pro-Moscow elite.