MOSCOW, January 17 (RIA Novosti) - Russian...

Speaking after hosting an international summit on the gas crisis, Medvedev said his Ukrainian counterpart, Viktor Yushchenko, had told him that "the positions of the president and prime minister of Ukraine were absolutely identical."

"I sincerely count on Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko having the necessary mandate to represent Ukraine at our meeting," he said. "I hope that none of the authority of the prime minister of Ukraine is reduced or limited."

"We shall see," the Russian president concluded.

Tymoshenko and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin continued talks on resolving the ongoing gas dispute between Moscow and Kiev after the summit.

Russia suspended supplies to Ukraine on January 1 after the former Soviet neighbors failed to agree on debt and prices for 2009. The halt in shipments to the EU came a week later, and an EU-brokered deal signed on Monday was not enough to resume deliveries, even though international monitors were deployed

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