Russia's natural gas company Gazprom slashed its supplies to Ukraine on Monday by a further 10 percent, bringing to 35 percent total cuts, said Valentin Zemlyansky, spokesman for Ukrainian national gas company Naftogaz.

"According to the latest statistics, supplies have been cut by 35 percent, total reductions in supplies stood at 46 million cubic meters," Zemlyansky told reporters.

Russia's natural gas company Gazprom cut gas deliveries to Ukraine by 25 percent at 10 a.m. Moscow time (0700 GMT) Monday as it warned earlier, after talks on debt disputes ended in failure.

Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov said Ukraine had consumed without Russian authorization around 1.9 billion cubic meters of Russian natural gas from the beginning of this year, worth some 600 million U.S. dollars.

The two sides failed in the last minute to sign a deal, under which they agreed that Ukraine would pay its debt for Russian gas deliveries and that a new delivery scheme would be worked out, Kupriyanov said.

Ukraine sits at the main transit route for Russia's gas exports to Europe, where a quarter of its gas needs is supplied by Russia.

(Xinhua News Agency March 4, 2008)