Russian president Vladimir Putin declared during his annual press conference that Russia will fulfill all its energy contracts for the international clients and rejected all allegations about Moscow using its energy resources as weapons against neighboring states.
"Russia always fulfills its obligations and will continue to do so, but we're not obligated to subsidize other states' economies. Russia is always accused of using its energy resources to achieve political targets", Putin said.
During the past year, Russian continued to increase the natural gas price for the former Soviet states. In January 2006, a conflict with Ukraine lowered the gas provision towards Europe and, in 2007, the Moscow - Minsk conflict made Russians cut the gas deliveries to Belarus for three days.
