Gazprom Settles With Ukraine, For Now

MOSCOW — Gazprom, the world’s largest natural gas producer, and Ukraine on Wednesday resolved their latest dispute over natural gas pricing before it could disrupt supplies to Europe.

In a statement Wednesday, Gazprom and Naftogaz, the Ukrainian national energy company, said they had agreed that Gazprom would resume full supplies of gas to Ukraine and that Naftogaz would settle the $600 million debt, without elaborating.

The companies came to terms after presidents Viktor A. Yushchenko of Ukraine and Vladimir V. Putin of Russia spoke on the phone, the statement said. Still, many longer-term questions appeared unresolved.

Gazprom had ratcheted up the pressure on Ukraine by reducing supplies by about 50 percent in two stages on Monday and Tuesday. Russia’s tactics alarmed European officials because about a fifth of the Continent’s supply flows through Ukraine.

The companies agreed to return to a deal in place at the beginning of the year for settling debt accrued by Ukraine from Jan. 1 to March 1, but left unresolved the question of prices for supplies from that date forward, according to the statement.

Still, the agreement lifted the imminent threat of gas reductions to European customers that had prompted the European Union to convene a group of specialists in a process signaling a possible disruption to supplies.

The resumption of supplies to Ukraine’s domestic market came a few hours after Naftogaz reiterated a threat first made on Tuesday that it would tap Gazprom’s export pipelines rather than cut off Ukrainian customers, according to a statement from Gazprom.

Yet Ukraine’s prime minister, Yulia V. Tymoshenko, had said supplies would be guaranteed and a spokesman for Naftogaz declined to elaborate Wednesday.

The joint statement by Naftogaz and Gazprom also left unsettled the role for intermediary companies in the future supply of Russian and Central Asian natural gas to Ukraine.

The dispute was the latest of many since the breakup of the Soviet Union, when Ukraine was left with export pipelines and Gazprom with gas fields. Over the years, Gazprom has subsidized Ukrainian domestic gas prices in exchange for access to the pipelines, spawning complex barter deals, constant renegotiations and, critics say, corruption.

In the latest dispute, Mr. Yushchenko of Ukraine and Mr. Putin of Russia met on Feb. 12 and announced an agreement hours before a Gazprom deadline to cut off the gas to Ukraine.

That agreement collapsed after Ms. Tymoshenko, a former gas trader turned critic of the business, declined to sign the deal reached by the presidents that seemed to leave a role in Ukraine’s domestic gas industry for intermediary companies linked to Gazprom.

Gazprom then reduced supply to force its terms, said Vladimir Polokhalo, a member of the Ukrainian parliament and ally of Ms. Tymoshenko. “Gazprom was using its position of strength for blackmail,” Mr. Polokhalo said.

The dispute also played into Ukraine’s internal politics, where Ms. Tymoshenko’s pro-Western government is fragile. The Party of Regions, a Russian-leaning group, had blamed the crisis on what it called Ms. Tymoshenko’s bungling of negotiations. It warned darkly of energy shortages and apartment blocks going cold. Ms. Tymoshenko’s office, in turn, issued a statement Wednesday saying the government would guarantee full gas supplies to domestic consumers in Ukraine.

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