The prime ministers of Ukraine and Russia, Mykola Azarov and Dmitry Medvedev, have promised that their countries would do their best to ensure stable supplies of natural gas from Russia to Europe via Ukraine.

In a telephone conversation on Friday, the two prime ministers "confirmed that each side would do everything necessary under its commitments to ensure undisrupted supplies of volumes of gas that European consumers need," the Ukrainian government said in a statement posted on its Web site.