By Dmitry Zhdannikov and Pete Harrison
MOSCOW/BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Russia and Ukraine signed a deal Monday for a second time to help secure the resumption of Russian gas supplies to Europe, cut off for nearly a week in freezing temperatures.
Earlier Monday Ukraine removed additions it had made to the deal struck over the weekend to resolve the latest row holding up the deployment of monitors to check Russian gas flowing across Ukraine to Europe.
Russia has accused Ukraine of siphoning off gas to make up for losses it has suffered since Moscow turned off the tap on January 1 in a dispute over gas prices. Ukraine denies the charge.
"The document has been finally signed," Alexander Medvedev, the deputy chief executive of Russia's state gas export monopoly Gazprom, said.
He told a news conference in Brussels that supplies should be restarted at 7 a.m. British time Tuesday "if there are no obstacles."
Gazprom and Ukraine have said it will take at least 36 hours before gas reaches the borders of the European Union after flows resume.
ENERGY SECURITY
The dispute has highlighted the 27-nation bloc's dependence on Russian gas.
"The crisis must encourage member states to make energy security a bigger priority than it has been so far," Czech Industry and Trade Minister Martin Riman said in a telephone interview.
He said the EU must accelerate talks on finding alternative energy sources, building gas pipelines and cementing cooperation to avoid being caught up in such supply disruptions.
"This crisis should be an encouragement, a kick for us all to start working faster and seriously on the projects," he said.
The gas row is yet another power-play between the neighbours, whose relations have been strained since Ukraine elected pro-Western leaders after the "Orange revolution" in 2004 and tried to shrug off Russia's influence.
Ukraine, which wants to join the NATO military alliance and the EU, has yet to resolve a dispute with Russia over its gas supplies and was defiant that it would not be bullied.
"I think the 12 days (that Ukraine has been without gas) shows that Ukraine has prepared itself for all eventualities seriously. Ukraine held out and can hold out much more," Andriy Goncharuk, the president's foreign policy adviser, told a news briefing.
The EU, which backed Ukraine in a similar dispute in 2006, has tried to steer a neutral course between the two, and helped broker the deal over the weekend to allow monitors on Ukrainian territory.
"UNBEARABLE"
But some EU diplomats have criticised both for holding the Union, which gets a fifth of all its gas supplies from pipelines that run from Russia across Ukraine, to ransom.
"It is unbearable that Russia and Ukraine carry out their conflict in the middle of a grim cold winter on Europe's back," German economics secretary, Peter Hintze, said in Brussels.
"We need a mechanism so we can act faster in future crises."
Eastern Europe has been badly hit by the gas shutdown, with several countries forced to look to alternative means of power or to use their reserves.
Bulgaria said it would ask the European Union to provide some 400 million euros (360.7 million pounds) in aid to help ease its dependence on Russia, its sole gas supplier, by expanding storage and building pipeline links to Greece and Romania.
Bulgaria, like Slovakia, said it might be forced to restart a nuclear power reactor to produce enough electricity.
Slovakia, which declared a state of emergency last week after the cut-off, said it was on the brink of a power blackout after a fire forced the partial shutdown of a coal power plant, news agency SITA reported.
