Ukrainian security agents raid Naftogaz offices

KIEV, Ukraine — Masked, armed security agents searched the headquarters of Ukraine's natural gas company Wednesday in a dispute between the country's feuding leaders that could jeopardize gas shipments to Europe.

The national security service, controlled by President Viktor Yushchenko, accused his rival Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko's government and its energy firm, Naftogaz, of diverting huge amounts of Russian gas. The security service ordered the raid as part of an investigation.

Tymoshenko denied the accusations and claimed Yushchenko staged the search in order to get a hand on the company's profits.

The two leaders are locked in a political battle that has impeded an effective response to the financial crisis in Ukraine, one of the worst performing economies in Europe.

The raid raised fears of a recurrence of the bitter standoff between Moscow and Kiev that left many European countries without Russian gas for two weeks in January. Debt-burdened Naftogaz was at the center of that dispute.

Tymoshenko's right-hand man, First Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Turchynov, charged that the search of Naftogaz headquarters days before a crucial payment deadline to Russian gas giant Gazprom was aimed at hindering the company's dealings with Russia. He said the agents were seeking to confiscate documents that would prevent the company from receiving Russian gas and paying for it.

"They wanted simply to paralyze the activities of Naftogaz" and its supplies to Ukrainian customers, Tymoshenko told reporters in Paris.

Naftogaz spokesman Valentyn Zemlyansky said the contracts were not confiscated in the raid and that Ukraine's deliveries of natural gas to European countries would not be affected. He said the search ended Wednesday night after Tymoshenko's supporters won a court order to stop the probe.

The dramatic search involved a scuffle between black-clad security agents and pro-Tymoshenko lawmakers and the interrogation of a top accountant, who was taken away in an ambulance suffering from what Zemlyansky said was hypertension.

Marina Ostapenko, a spokeswoman for the national security service, or SBU, said that the raid was part of criminal investigation launched this week into the alleged diversion of Russian gas worth 7.4 billion hryvna ($900 million) by officials at Naftogaz.

The SBU's second-in-command, Valery Khoroshovsky, told Parliament Wednesday that Naftogaz employees as well as top officials in Tymoshenko's Cabinet had improperly taken gas that Gazprom had sold to the RosUkrEnergo company in recent years.

RosUkrEnergo was an intermediary in Russia's sale of gas to Ukraine. It was eliminated this year as part of the January deal between Russia and Ukraine.

Tymoshenko denied the charges against her and Naftogaz on Wednesday and accused Yushchenko of maintaining improper ties to RosUkrEnergo _ an allegation he has repeatedly denied. She claimed he masterminded the raid in order to secure a share of Naftogaz's profits for RosUkrEnergo.

Yushchenko defended the raid. "The actions of SBU employees were quite tough, but the circumstances of the case demand that," he said in a statement on his Web site.

Naftogaz must pay for February gas consumption by March 8. The company said late Wednesday that it had transferred 80 percent of the payment to Gazprom.

Gazprom could not be reached immediately to confirm the transfer. The company said earlier in the day that it was concerned about the events at Naftogaz and hoped they would not derail the payments or shipments to Europe.

Yushchenko and Tymoshenko joined forces this week to lobby for a $16.4 billion emergency loan from the International Monetary Fund to rescue a devastated economy, but the unity ended there.

In an interview with the French newspaper Le Monde published Wednesday, Tymoshenko called for early presidential elections and indicated she would run and win. She said that her struggle with Yushchenko will end "not in my destruction but in his political suicide."

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Associated Press Writer Nataliya Vasilyeva contributed to this report from Moscow.

(This version CORRECTS payment deadline to March 8.)