Budapest/Brussels - The European Union reported the first impacts of the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian gas row on Friday evening as three member states in Central and Eastern Europe reported falling gas pressure in their pipelines.

Pipeline pressure is down in the main pipes leading from Ukraine into EU members Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, the Czech Republic's energy envoy, Vaclav Bartuska, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa. The Czech Republic currently holds the EU's rotating presidency.

"It is so far only a decrease in pressure. The volumes (being delivered) remain the same ... The Ukrainian side told us that volumes will be down tomorrow (Saturday)," Bartuska said.

Prague - Pressure began to drop Friday in pipelines that supply Russian natural gas to the European Union at the bloc's border with Ukraine, a result of Russia's cut in gas delivery to Ukraine that began Thursday, a Czech energy official said.

"It is so far only a decrease in pressure. The volumes remain the same," Czech Republic's energy envoy Vaclav Bartuska told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa. He said that the pipeline pressure was down on Ukraine's border with Poland, Slovakia and Hungary.

Budapest - Hungary's minister responsible for energy, Csaba Molnar, said Friday that the pressure in pipelines bringing Russian gas into Hungary from Ukraine had dropped slightly at 4 pm.

This came shortly after Ukraine's gas distributor informed its Hungarian counterpart that it would reduce daily delivery of gas to Hungary from 37 to 32 million cubic metres.

The Hungarian government accused Ukraine of breaking the terms of its supply contract.

With temperatures well below freezing across the country, Hungary is currently burning 66 million cubic metres of natural gas per day, the storage company E. ON said.

Kiev  - Ukraine's government on Friday upped the ante in its natural gas conflict with Russia, informing the Kremlin's ongoing gas shipments to Europe might well be "confiscated."

The absence of a contract between Russia and Ukraine for gas deliveries and transfers onward to Europe makes any gas shipped by Russia into Ukraine technically "of unknown origin," and so subject to confiscation by the Ukrainian government, wrote Oleh Dubina, chairman of Ukraine's Naftogaz Ukrainy gas trading company.

Prague  - The European Union is to avoid involvement in a Russian-Ukrainian row over gas supplies as long as Russian gas keeps flowing to the 27-member bloc, an EU official said Thursday.

Speaking on Czech Television, the new EU head, Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek, said that the EU was reluctant to broker the bilateral gas dispute that threatens union's gas supplies.

"It is pretty much a Russian-Ukrainian dispute and it has to be solved as such," Topolanek said.

Berlin - Gas suppliers said Thursday they foresaw no shortage of gas in Germany, western Europe's biggest gas importer, despite Russia cutting gas supplies to its western neighbour Ukraine.

"Our customers can count on reliable deliveries," said Martin Weyand, chief of the BDEW German utilities federation.