YALTA, Ukraine — Russia and Ukraine have failed to agree on new terms for supplies of Russian gas, President Vladimir Putin said Thursday after talks with his Ukrainian counterpart, Vladimir Yanukovych, who sought to negotiate a lower gas price.
"There are issues where we have not reached an agreement but … we will aspire to do that," Putin told reporters when asked about the gas issue.
Kiev, which depends heavily on energy imports, has long wanted to revise a 2009 gas deal with Moscow, which it argues set an exorbitant price for the fuel.
But talks, including those between Yanukovych and Dmitry Medvedev, who was president tat the time, also failed to yield a breakthrough.
"We must find a solution," Yanukovych's office quoted him as saying Wednesday. "I think we will manage to do so."
Moscow insists that in order to get a discount, Ukraine must either let Gazprom take over its gas pipelines — which carry Russian gas to Europe — or join a Russia-led Customs Union, a post-Soviet trade bloc.
