"We feared that bureaucratic difficulties would not allow European agencies to promptly interfere with this issue. However, your prompt reaction to the current developments, and your visits to Kiev and Moscow suggest that we will be able to reach the necessary agreement."
"I am glad to say that today's discussion has led us to the coordination of practically all nuances of monitoring Russian natural gas exports to our European clients via Ukraine."
"Everyone should be clear that there are two problems here. One concerns Russia's sales of gas to Ukraine, while the other concerns Russian gas transit to European users via Ukraine. European consumers should not be made hostage to Russian-Ukrainian economic relations."
Events for 9 january 2009
Vladimir Putin held a meeting with First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov
During the meeting, employment programs in Russia were touched upon.
Events for 8 january 2009
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin met with foreign media
"The most important thing today, one of the key issues, is to ensure the safety of supplies. That is why, realizing that such situations may arise in the future, Russia has long set the task of diversifying supplies of our energy. To this end, we launched the plan to build the North-Western pipeline system under the Baltic Sea and another system under the Black Sea (we tentatively call it the South Stream). For that purpose, we built the Blue Stream pipeline to Turkey on the bottom of the Black Sea."
