Another gas-related update from RFE/RL's news desk:
Russia’s state-run natural gas monopoly, Gazprom, started shipping gas directly to separatist-controlled areas of eastern Ukraine after Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on February 19 ordered his Energy Ministry to work out a supply plan as "humanitarian aid."
Gazprom chief Aleksei Miller was quoted by RIA Novosti as saying the shipments are passing through the Prokhorovka and Platovo gas-metering stations at a rate of about 12 million cubic meters per day.
The Prokhorovka station is on the border of Russia and the Luhansk region while Platovo is on Russia's border with the Donetsk region.
Miller said the deliveries were being made according to the "current sale-and-purchase contract between Gazprom and Ukraine’s Naftogaz."
He did not give further details.
Naftogaz chief Andriy Kobolev said the shipments violate its contract with Gazprom and that Kyiv would not pay for the deliveries because Naftogaz cannot take in and control the process.
(Interfax, TASS, RIA Novosti)