Ukraine
will buy only 25 billion cubic meters of natural gas from Russia in
2010, the country's Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko said Thursday,
according to her official Web site.
Ukraine
will buy 33 bcm of gas from Russia's OAO Gazprom (GAZP.RS) in 2009,
down from 52 bcm a year earlier, the said, adding that substituting
imported gas for coal and electricity is a cornerstone of Ukraine's "policy of energy independence."
A price spat between Ukraine and Russia led last winter to Gazprom switching off the taps, leaving millions of consumers in Ukraine, Central and Eastern Europe without gas.