Financial troubles of the Ukrainian natural gas company, Naftogaz, might lead to a new gas crisis between Russia and the Ukraine.

The news has been announced by ITAR-TASS which cites a source from the Russian government delegation led by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in the capital of Kazakhstan, Astana.

According to the cited source, expert estimates of the financial condition of Ukraine's Naftogaz quoted Wednesday in the Ukrainian media show that the company is in a rather unfavorable situation.

This allegedly means that Naftogaz has no money to purchase natural gas from Gazprom for the summer refilling of the storage facilities, whereas Gazprom owned no more advance payments to Naftogaz for the natural gas transit fees till the end of 2009.

According to the Russian government source, if the Ukraine could not solve the problem with refilling its storage supplies, this might lead to a situation in which in the winter Naftogaz would not be able fulfill its obligations for the transit of Russian gas for European consumers.

This would practically amount to a new gas war between Russia and the Ukraine like the one that took place in January 2009 when a dispute over transit fees and debts led to the termination of Russian gas supplies through the Ukraine for the EU; Bulgaria was hurt the worst by the January crisis.

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