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Dispute between Naftogaz officials and parliamentarians of Tymoshenkoâ€™s block

04 March 2009 14:53 (UTC +04:00)

Kyiv-APA. Masked government agents broke into the headquarters of Ukraine national natural gas company Naftogaz Ukrainy on Wednesday and were searching the premises, witnesses said. The armed men wore black or camouflage uniforms commonly used by Ukrainian special force police and military units.
Ukraine’s national intelligence agency the SBU in a statement confirmed their agents had made the raid in connection with an anti-corruption investigation.
The SBU assault teams totalling 20-30 troopers were moving through Naftogaz offices searching for unidentified documents, the witnesses said.
A short tussle took place after a group of MPs loyal to Naftogaz management attempted to push through a cordon of SBU agents, and remove the troopers’ black masks.
An SBU officer placed the senior Naftogaz accountant under arrest, but she was unable to leave the building because of a sudden health problem, eyewitnesses said.
The incidents came only hours after Ukraine’s secret police the SBU arrested a senior tax administration official for allowing some 13.7 billion cubic metres of natural gas of disputed title and held in Ukrainian reservoirs and pipelines to be marketed in Ukraine.
Yushchenko’s office in a Wednesday statement called Tymoshenko’s arguments "grounds for the anti-corruption investigation," and repeated past declarations that RusUkrEnergo would receive full payment for the gas.
Conflict between Yushchenko and Tymoshenko over Ukraine’s natural gas priorities sparked an two-week energy crisis in Europe in early January, after Russia cut off supplies to Ukraine after months of failing to reach a 2009 contract agreement with the Yushchenko- Tymoshenko government.