Kiev  - Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko gave his indirect but clear approval to a recent agreement on natural gas deliveries between his political rival Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, and the Kremlin, according to Wednesday news reports.

Boris Sokolovsky, senior energy security adviser to the Ukrainian leader said the terms of Russian gas delivery obtained by Tymoshenko in Tuesday's meetings in Poland with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin "seemed generally correct," the Interfax news agency reported.

Yushchenko and Tymoshenko, both candidates in Ukraine's January presidential elections, have repeatedly blamed each other in the past for Kiev's thorny energy relations with Russia.

According to Yushchenko administration estimates, Ukraine was likely to consume some 46 billion cubic metres of natural gas in 2010, of which 27 billion would require importation from Russia. These numbers are close to the volumes that Tymoshenko and Putin agreed to on Tuesday, Sokolovsky said.

After meeting with Putin, Tymoshenko said she had agreed with the Kremlin that Ukrainian natural gas needs were on track to demand some 25 billion cubic metres of gas in 2010.

"This (the 25 billion Tymoshenko estimate) approaches but does not fully match our (the Yushchenko adminstration's) expectations," Sokolovsky said.

But Sokolovsky praised as "positive" two key terms of the Tymoshenko agreement with Putin: that in the future Ukraine would purchase Russian gas in needed volumes rather than an amount fixed by contract, and that Russia's natural gas monopoly Gazprom would not demand millions of dollars fines Ukraine is obliged to pay for non-consumption of gas contracted for 2009.

"I have grounds to believe that Gazprom is in a positive frame of mind," Sokolovsky said. "They are not demanding sanctions (non-consumption fines from Ukraine) when they could."

Yushchenko was planning to travel to Turkmenistan, a major gas supplier, in September in an effort to widen Ukrainian natural gas imports beyond Russia, Sokolovsky said.

Ukraine is one of Russia's biggest natural gas customers, consuming some 33 billion cubic metres of the fuel in 2008.

Falling industrial output and the rising cost of international currencies in the latter half of 2009 have reduced Ukrainian purchases of Russian gas by some 20 per cent.

Kiev and the Kremlin have long been at odds over energy deliveies, most recently in early 2009, when a dispute over gas pricing ended in a three-week Russian blockade of all deliveries to its western neighbour. (dpa)