Putin has also suggested that the non-payment of the gas bill had more to do with a "war of the clans" involving Ukrainian Prime Minister, Yulia Tymoshenko.

The company that is acting as intermediary between Ukraine and Russia in the dispute over payments is RosUkrEnergo, an operation established at the behest of Putin in 2004 and half-owned by Gazprom. RosUkrEnergo makes huge profits from its status as the secondary wholesaler of Russian gas through Ukraine, last year buying Russian gas for $2.27 per million cubic feet and selling it to Europe for as much as $5.55.

The two leading Ukrainian businessmen in RosUkrEnergo, Dmitry Firtash and Ivan Fursin, jointly own the other half of the firm. With such enormous power and wealth at their disposal, the two figures represent a potential threat to the interests of Tymoshenko as well as likely allies of Moscow, upon whom their lucrative arrangement largely depends.

Tymoshenko has proposed ending RosUkrEnergo's role as go-between over gas supplies. Instead she is seeking to import gas from Russia and sell it directly to Europe, a move that would augment the interests of her government and its supporters in big business. Tymoshenko's multi-million dollar personal fortune was made in the gas industry in the 1990s.

Tymoshenko has also alleged that RosUkrEnergo is controlled by Semion Mogilevich, a Ukrainian-born oligarch wanted by the FBI in the United States and currently under arrest in Russia on tax evasion charges.

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