Ukraine’s Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko is poised to discuss the issue of “gas price optimization” with her Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin when they meet in Yalta tomorrow, November 19. “We are set to consider how we can optimize the price on Russian gas for Ukraine and streamline all our relations as well,” Timoshenko said, adding that she was determined to “continue a constructive dialog with Russia in the future.”

According to the Ukrainian PM, Ukraine must buy gas at market prices. “This is the basis of our political independence. I believe it is wrong, at best, to ask another country to sell gas to us at prices below the market level and bear all the losses,” she noted. In 2009, Timoshenko continued, Ukraine managed to negotiate cheaper prices on gas than had initially been planned under the agreements it reached in 2009. “The only thing that Viktor Yushchenko was able to achieve by putting a strain on diplomatic relations was the promise of a gas price of $450 per 1,000 cubic meters,” she announced.

The PM declared that Ukraine had only been able to reach an acceptable price of $228.5 per 1,000 cubic meters because of the special price for the 11bn cubic meters of natural gas available in gas storages. Thanks to this and a 20-percent discount, the average gas price for the year was finally fixed and maintained at $228 per 1,000 cubic meters.

As reported earlier, tomorrow the Crimean resort of Yalta will host a summit of CIS prime ministers, a meeting of the intergovernmental Russian-Ukrainian economic commission and a bilateral meeting of the Russian and Ukrainian PMs.