Moscow  - Russian Prime Minsiter Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Yulia Tymoshenko settled a contractual dispute on Sunday morning, allowing for an end to a week-long freeze on transits to gas-starved Europe.

The two premiers emerged from crisis talks that ran into the early hours of the morning Sunday with an accord on gas pricing for 2009, and pledged to resume gas transits to Europe as soon as the documents the documents were signed on January 19.

"Negotiations were very hard, but we have come to mutual understanding ... All natural gas supplies will resume as soon as these documents are signed," Tymoshenko said in a televised statement.

Moscow  - Russia and Ukraine settled their contractual dispute over gas supplies early Monday morning, bringing an end to a week-long embargo on transits to gas-starved Europe.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko said in a joint televised statement they would sign a new supply contract for 2009 on Monday, immediately freeing gas supplies via Ukrainian pipelines to Europe.

"All natural gas supplies will resume as soon as these documents are signed," Tymoshenko said.

Moscow  - Russian and Ukraine settled their contractual dispute over gas supplies early Sunday morning, ending a week-long embargo on transits to gas-starved Europe.

Moscow  - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said he hoped gas transits to Europe would be resumed in "the next few days," but offered no immediate solution to the crisis Saturday.

Medvedev said talks "are continuing" on resolving the Russian-Ukrainian deadlock and would now be taken up in a bilateral meeting between Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Yulia Tymoshenko.

But he accused Ukraine of dragging its feet in talks.

Moscow - Ukrainian leaders were set to arrive in Moscow on Saturday in a push to end a protracted contractual dispute with Russia that has frozen nearly all gas supplies to Europe.

The European Union, which buys one-quarter of its gas from Russia, called the talks the "last and best chance" for both sides to salvage their reputation as reliable suppliers.

Sofia - Bulgarian Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev said on Friday that his country would restart a Soviet-era nuclear power reactor at Kozloduy, in the face of severe ongoing gas shortages due to the energy dispute between Ukraine and Russia.

Bulgarian news agency Focus reported that Stanishev said his government had decided to begin the 45-day technical preparation process to restart the reactor, because the country had still received no gas from its Russian supplier.

Earlier on Friday, Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov called for a new European Union energy policy in the wake of the ongoing dispute.