By Christian Lowe and Sabina Zawadzki
MOSCOW/KIEV (Reuters) - Russian gas kept flowing to European Union states on Friday, a day after Moscow cut off flows to Ukraine in a contract dispute, but importers across the continent were watching for signs their supplies were faltering.
Europe gets about a fifth of its gas via pipelines through Ukraine. Moscow said these supplies should be unaffected by the cut-off unless Kiev starts illegally diverting the gas. Russia expected to know later in the day whether this was happening.
Energy firms in Germany, France, Poland, Romania, Austria and Italy said on Thursday they had not yet seen any drop in supply.
Europe, where temperatures fell below freezing overnight, has enough gas stockpiled to manage without Russian supply for several days, analysts said.
After both the European Union and the United States urged a quick solution to the row, Ukraine said its negotiators would fly to Moscow to resume talks that broke down on New Year's eve, but there was no confirmation they had arrived.
The row could raise new doubts about Moscow's reliability as an energy supplier and fuel suspicions in the West -- already running high since Russia's war with Georgia last August -- that the Kremlin bullies its pro-Western neighbours.
Though Russia denies politics is behind the dispute and says it is about prices and debts, the two ex-Soviet neighbours have clashed over a drive by Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko to take his country into the NATO alliance.
Ukrainian Energy Minister Yuri Prodan was due to arrive on Friday in the Czech Republic, holder of the EU's rotating presidency, to reassure Europe about supplies, a statement from Ukraine's president said.
If talks between Ukrainian state energy company Naftogaz and Russia's gas export monopoly Gazprom do resume, the gulf between their negotiating positions is wide.
Alexei Miller, CEO of Gazprom, said on Thursday he wanted Ukraine to pay $418 per 1,000 cubic metres (tcm) of gas, compared with the $179.5 Kiev paid in 2008. Ukraine says the most it can afford to pay is $235.
There are also disputes over the amount Russian will pay for the right to ship its gas to Europe via Ukraine, and the $2 billion (1.4 billion pounds) Gazprom says it has still not received from Kiev in gas arrears.
Gazprom charges about $500/tcm to customers in the European Union, though that is likely to fall by up to half this year. Gas prices track oil and crude has plummeted in value.
PIPELINE PRESSURE
The EU is keen to avoid a repeat of a January 2006 row when Moscow cut off supplies to Ukraine, causing a brief reduction in gas deliveries to other parts of Europe in mid-winter.
Gazprom said it was watching for signs that Ukraine was siphoning off gas destined for customers in Europe.
The company said its engineers were monitoring pipeline pressure at a pumping station in Slovakia, just to the west of the Ukrainian border, and would be able to say if any gas was going missing later on Friday.
"At the moment it cannot be assessed whether (Russia's actions) will also bring a supply reduction to central and western Europe," Austrian energy firm OMV said in a statement.
"Experts ... are watching the development of the situation."
Supplies were unaffected to Turkey, which gets some Russian gas via Ukraine, an official with state energy company Botas said.
Ukraine's Naftogaz said it guaranteed uninterrupted supplies of Russian gas to Europe and that it was drawing the fuel from underground stockpiles to meet its own needs.
But it said it was diverting 21 million cubic metres of gas a day -- or about 6 percent of the volumes flowing to Europe -- to maintain pressure in the pipeline network, a step Gazprom could interpret as illegal siphoning.
Russia says its row with Kiev is purely commercial. Squeezing more money from Ukraine is particularly pressing for Gazprom now as its finances have been hurt by the global financial crisis and gas prices are on the way down.
A protracted row is likely to hurt the Ukrainian economy, already reeling from a drop-off in investor confidence and steep falls in the hryvnia currency that have not been stemmed by an International Monetary Fund loan.
