Russia, Ukraine Broke Gas Accord, E.U. Says

KIEV, Ukraine, Jan. 13 -- The European Union accused Russia and Ukraine on Tuesday of breaking a deal to restore deliveries of natural gas to the continent, saying the countries were hindering observers sent to monitor gas flows even as large parts of Europe struggled for a sixth day to find supplies for heat and electricity.

Under an E.U.-brokered agreement, Russia pumped a limited amount of gas into Ukraine's pipelines for the first time in nearly a week Tuesday morning, but none of it reached Europe. Gazprom, the Russian gas monopoly, accused Ukraine of stealing the fuel, while Ukrainian officials said Russia refused to ship it through the right pipelines.

The European Union said it could not determine the truth because its observers were not given full access to control centers in Moscow and Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, despite promises made in the agreement signed Monday.

E.U. spokesman Ferran Tarradellas Espuny said Russia and Ukraine were in "clear violation" of the accord. "Access to the dispatching rooms is absolutely essential," he said. "That is a key condition to undertake proper monitoring -- free access to dispatching centers -- 24 hours a day."

European Commission President José Manuel Barroso phoned Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, but it was unclear Tuesday night whether he had persuaded either to let the observers in.

In Kiev, the government issued a statement saying Tymoshenko had agreed to "more active involvement of European experts," while in Moscow, Putin denied that any European monitors had been blocked and said the European Union had apologized for making the allegation.

Later, Alexander Medvedev, deputy chief executive of Gazprom, told reporters that the company was granting E.U. observers permanent access to its central control center "as a gesture of goodwill" that went "beyond the conditions of the agreement."

Medvedev also suggested that the United States was encouraging Ukraine's defiance, noting that Washington signed a partnership agreement with Kiev's pro-Western government in December. "It looks like they are dancing to music that is orchestrated not in Ukraine; they are dancing to music orchestrated elsewhere," he said. "I am making reference to the agreement between Ukraine and the United States."

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the charge was "without foundation."

Russia suspended all gas supplies to Ukraine on Jan. 1 in a dispute over past-due bills and a proposed price increase. The flow of Russian gas to Europe via Ukrainian pipelines stopped six days later.

After initially casting the conflict as purely a commercial one, Putin has increasingly been using the standoff to attack the Ukrainian leadership. In a televised appearance Tuesday, he said Ukraine might be incapable of managing the pipeline network properly, building on a suggestion he made over the weekend that Ukraine sell or lease part of the system to Russia and Europe.

"Maybe the technical state of the Ukrainian gas transportation system is such that it is not in a position to pump gas through," he said of the pipelines, which deliver 80 percent of Russian supplies to Europe.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko shot back that Russia was trying to "change the ideology of the gas transportation system's management, operation and ownership" and "disturb the internal political situation in the country." Speaking at a news conference, he also said that Russia might have provoked the crisis in an attempt to build support in Europe for building an alternative pipeline that bypasses Ukraine.

Gazprom said it tried to deliver 76.6 million cubic meters of gas through Ukraine's pipelines to the Balkans, where several countries are suffering severe shortages, as a test on Tuesday. But analysts said that is less than a third of what it usually sends to Europe in the winter and might not have been enough to restore pressure in the pipelines.

Ukrainian officials said Russia refused to send gas through the pumping stations they specified and insisted on using a route that would have forced Naftogaz, Ukraine's state-owned energy firm, to cut off gas to a large part of the country. Gazprom said it refused to send gas to the stations because they are used for Ukraine's domestic consumers and not for deliveries to Europe.