VIP Forums Muzblog Chat Games Gallery. Форум, муздневники, чат, игры, галлерея.

MOSCOW – Russia and Ukraine hotly blamed each other Tuesday as Russia restarted natural gas supplies but little or no gas flowed toward Europe. EU officials watched in dismay and criticized both nations for their intransigence.

Russia's state-controlled gas monopoly Gazprom said it began pumping gas to Europe at 10 a.m. (0700 GMT, 2 a.m. EST), ending a six-day cutoff, but four hours later Gazprom's Deputy Chairman Alexander Medvedev said Ukraine's pipeline system had failed to carry it on to Europe.

"Ukraine didn't open any export pipelines," he told reporters. "They just shut down the entry of the pipeline in the direction of the Balkans. We don't have the physical opportunity to pump the gas to European customers."

Underscoring political tensions behind the gas dispute, Medvedev accused Washington of encouraging Ukraine's defiance. "It looks like they are dancing under the music that is orchestrated not in Ukraine," he said Tuesday.

Ukrainian energy adviser Bohdan Sokolovsky said Russia deliberately shipped the gas along a technically arduous route that requires Ukraine to cut domestic consumers out before it can deliver gas to the Balkans. He said a gas entry point on the Russian border and a gas pumping station near the Romanian border where Gazprom wants its gas delivered are not linked by an export pipeline.

"They are continuing their campaign to discredit Ukraine," Sokolovsky told The Associated Press.

Ukraine's President Viktor Yushchenko accused Russia of using the gas dispute to try to wrest control of Ukraine's 23,000-mile (37,000) Pipeline.