By Christian Lowe and Guy Faulconbridge
MOSCOW/KIEV (Reuters) - Russia's state-controlled gas monopoly said a deal to monitor gas exports via Ukraine would be signed on Friday, allowing for the resumption of supplies to Europe cut off by Moscow's price row with Kiev.
"We expect that in the course of today the protocol on the creation of an international independent mechanism to guarantee the transit of Russian gas through Ukraine will be signed," Interfax quoted Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller as saying.
"And immediately after that we will renew (gas) deliveries."
The European Commission said a gas monitoring team had already started work in Kiev, but Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said it would take time to resume shipments, cut off for several days as Europe suffered bitter winter weather.
Miller was speaking after meeting Russian President Dmitry Medvedev who said he wanted to see gas flowing to Europe "as quickly as possible." Medvedev added that a deal must be signed before shipments resume.
Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek, whose country holds the European Union presidency, will travel to Ukraine on Friday to finalise agreement on the monitoring, a Czech source said.
In a sign that obstacles remained to a deal, Ukraine's state energy company Naftogaz said Russia had not given Ukrainian monitors access to gas-pumping stations on Russian territory.
Russian officials have said even once the monitors are in place, it could take many hours and possibly days before Russian gas shipped via Ukraine starts reaching Europe again.
Resuming the flows involves building up pressure in the pipeline network, and the large distances involved mean that, once moving, the gas will take time to reach customers.
The gas is likely to be delivered only to Europe, not Ukraine itself, since Moscow and Kiev have yet to agree a price for the gas, subsidised since Soviet times. Russia has repeatedly said Ukraine must now pay the going market rate.
But the presence of monitoring missions at points along the transit routes for Russian gas will reassure Moscow that the gas it is pumping across Ukraine is not being siphoned off by Kiev.
Moscow cited this allegation -- denied by Ukraine -- as its reason for shutting off gas through its ex-Soviet neighbour earlier this week.
HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS WITHOUT GAS
The nine-day gas crisis has left hundreds of thousands of people in the Balkans without gas, forced factories to shut down and disrupted deliveries as far west as France and Germany, while the continent faced freezing mid-winter temperatures.
The dispute between Kiev and its former Soviet master also follows tensions over Ukraine's efforts to join NATO, a move bitterly opposed by Moscow and viewed with wariness even by European members of the alliance and by investors.
In typically forthright comments to Western reporters at his residence outside Moscow, Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin blamed the gas crisis in part on a "collapse" of the authorities in Kiev and high-level corruption in Ukraine.
"In order to restore normal flows, (Ukraine) needs to come to Moscow and sign a contract for gas supplies to Ukraine," he said. "And they need to pay for the product they receive. At the market price ... our Ukrainian partners don't want to sign and don't want to pay. That's it."
Ukraine has been beset for months by political squabbling between President Viktor Yushchenko and his former ally, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, notably over ties with Russia.
Russia cut off gas for Ukraine's domestic consumption on January 1 in a row over pricing and debts, a dispute Putin said was now damaging Russia's image.
Officials from both sides met EU officials in Brussels where the 27-nation bloc sought an end to the spat, which has highlighted its vulnerability to energy supply disruptions.
The European Union receives a quarter of its gas supplies from Russia, 80 percent of which pass through Ukraine.
Supplies to 18 countries have been disrupted by the dragging dispute.
