Brussels, 13/01/2009 (Agence Europe) - Further complications arose on Tuesday 13 January in the gas dispute between Moscow and Kiev which has been going on since the beginning of the year. These prevented the resumption expected the previous day of gas supplies to Europe via Ukraine. On Tuesday, the Commission indicated that its experts checking gas supplies between Russia and Ukraine had not had full access to the Gazprom distribution control centre in Moscow or its Naftogaz equivalent in Kiev. After Moscow confirmed the first flow from the Sudzha station to the Orlovka metering station in Ukraine at 8 o'clock in the morning, the Russian company declared that it was unable to supply gas to Europe and accused Ukraine of blocking gas supplies. Gazprom said the first flow of gas stood at 76.6 million cubic meters a day: 62.7 million for the Balkans and 13.9 million for Moldova. Kiev later admitted blocking transit but justified its position by Gazprom having imposed unacceptable transit conditions. Naftogaz said that neither gas volume nor its destinations were being coordinated with its services, which contravened transition operations. It proposed the introduction of transparency into cooperation between itself as distributor and Gazprom's transit conditions. European Commission President José Manuel Barroso expressed the “disappointment of the EU” to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, with regard to the low levels of gas being supplied to Europe. Towards the end of the morning, a Commission spokesperson confirmed that very little or no gas at all is being supplied to the EU and declared that “the situation is obviously very serious and needs to be rapidly improved”. The following sentence was withdrawn from the Council's draft conclusions: “We confirm that the draft conclusions adopted on Monday 12 January by the special Council of EU energy ministers on the Russia/Ukraine gas dispute (EUROPE 9816) do not indicate the disapproval of the 27 with the lack of political will of the two parties to resolve the crisis”. (A.By/transl.rh)