By Dmitry Zhdannikov and Sabina Zawadzki
MOSCOW/KIEV (Reuters) - European states started suffering from lower Russian gas supplies on Friday while Moscow accused Kiev of stealing transit gas a day after deliveries to Ukraine were cut in a contract dispute.
Russia's gas export monopoly Gazprom said some countries in the Balkans had told it they were getting less gas than they had asked for and gas importers in Hungary and Poland said pressure on their pipelines had dropped.
"Pressure started to decline at 3:00 p.m. British time. Pressure is declining continuously. However, the drop has not yet reached a critical level," Edina Lakatos, a spokeswoman for the Hungarian energy company MOL's natural gas transmission subsidiary, said.
Ukraine's state energy firm Naftogaz denied it was illegally siphoning off Russian gas.
Gazprom accused Ukraine of stealing relatively small volumes of transit gas, but the accusation suggested Moscow was in no mood for compromise in a re-run of a 2006 argument that led to supply shortages across the EU.
Gazprom said it was responding to Ukraine's actions by increasing exports via alternative routes, including Belarus.
"The Ukrainian side openly admits it is stealing gas and is not ashamed of this," Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov said.
Poland said deliveries from Ukraine had dropped six percent but were being made up by deliveries through Belarus.
The European Union -- which receives a fifth of its gas via pipelines through Ukraine -- said it considered the dispute between Moscow and Kiev to be a bilateral issue.
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.
PRICES AND DEBTS
Russia denies politics are behind the dispute and says it is about prices and debts, but the two ex-Soviet neighbours have clashed over a drive by Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko to take his country into the NATO alliance.
Gazprom spokesman Kupriyanov said Ukraine had agreed to ship 296 million cubic metres (mcm) to Europe on January 3, not the 303 mcm that Russia had requested.
Ukraine had earlier said it was diverting 21 mcm a day of supplies destined for Europe so that it could maintain pressure in its pipeline system.
MOL was the first firm to report lower supplies.
Earlier on Friday, energy firms in Germany, Bulgaria and Turkey said their supplies were unaffected.
Europe, where temperatures fell below freezing overnight, has enough gas stockpiled to manage without Russian supplies for several days but could face difficulties if any disruption stretched into weeks, analysts said.
Talks between Naftogaz and Gazprom have not resumed since they collapsed two days ago. If they do restart, the negotiators will have to bridge huge differences.
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 $179.50 Kiev paid in 2008. Ukraine says the most it can afford to pay is $235.
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.
Gas markets in northwest Europe seemed unconcerned about the supply outlook over the next few days, with prices falling in Britain and Belgium on expectations of warmer weather.
"I guess everyone expects it (the Russia-Ukraine row) to be resolved fairly soon and if it's resolved over the next day or so then it shouldn't cause any problems, there is plenty of storage to cover things as well," one UK gas trader 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. Temperatures in Kiev were about 8 degrees Celsius below zero.
Squeezing more money from Ukraine is particularly pressing for Gazprom now as 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.
