President Viktor Yuschenko must resume negotiations on market terms for gas deliveries and gas transit.
"Of course a market price for Russian gas must be discussed as well as market principles for formation of transit policy," Yuschenko said in an interview published in Nezamisimaya Gazeta on Friday.
Yuschenko said the Russian-Ukrainian gas conflict was "borne of mediocre policy."
"The problem is that both Ukraine and Russia lost the gas war. But there is a third party as well, the European Union; the gas agreement signed by Russia and Ukraine did little to convince the EU that the conflict was resolved and would never be repeated. We aren't able to do the main thing: prove to Europe that Ukraine and Russia have the ability to independently and effectively resolve the problems that emerge and are reliable partners for third countries," he said.
Russia and Ukraine "have never had such unbalanced gas relations as they do now," he said.
