KIEV, Ukraine, March 4 (UPI) -- The new leadership in Ukraine should persuade Kremlin officials to take another look at the gas relationship of both countries, lawmakers said.
A strained gas relationship between Kiev and Moscow prompted Russian energy monopoly Gazprom to cut gas supplies to Ukraine briefly in 2009. Kiev, meanwhile, struggled to pay its gas bills to Russia last year as the economic recession crippled the Ukrainian market.
European leaders told Kiev this week that the European Union needed "urgent progress on modernization and restructuring of the (Ukrainian) gas sector."
Energy ties between Kiev and Moscow are a matter of concern for Europe. European customers get around 20 percent of their gas from Russia and 80 percent of that supply travels through Soviet-era pipelines in Ukraine.
Serhiy Tihipko, a 2010 presidential candidate and leader of the Labor Ukraine party, said newly elected President Viktor Yanukovych needs to examine the gas ties with Moscow, the National News Agency of Ukraine reports.
"Viktor Yanukovych faces a difficult task: to convince the Kremlin heads that the discriminatory concerning Ukraine gas contract hampers both parties," he said.
Tihipko favors the privatization of Ukraine's gas-pipeline system.
